Available evidence and the decisions adopted by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) indicate that a significant gap remains in finance for biodiversity management, for countries to drastically scale up their efforts and achieve the 20 Aichi Targets defined in the CBD’s Strategic Plan for 2011-2020. A preliminary assessment recently conducted under the auspices of the High-level Panel on Global Assessment of Resources for Implementing the CBD Strategic Plan estimated that the global investment required ranges between 130 and 440 billion US$ annually. While useful, this and similar other global estimates are based on extrapolations sensitive to the underlying assumptions. To define biodiversity finance needs and gaps with greater precision and determine related challenges and opportunities for resource mobilisation, detailed national-level (bottom-up) assessments are therefore required.
BIOFIN aims to develop a methodology for quantifying the biodiversity finance gap at national level, for cost-effectiveness through mainstreaming of biodiversity into national development and sectoral planning and for developing comprehensive national resource mobilizing strategies.