Additional financial resources

The Conference of the Parties,

Recalling the commitments made by all Parties in Articles 20 and 21 of the Convention on Biological Diversity,

Taking note of the report by the Executive Secretary on additional financial resources⁽²⁹⁾, the report of the Workshop on Financing for Biological Diversity held in Havana on 16-17 July 2001⁽³⁰⁾ and the first CBD News Supplement on Financing for Biological Diversity, as well as the outcomes of the International Workshop on Financial Support for the Development of National Biosafety Frameworks organized by the United Nations Environment Programme in Havana on 14 July 2001,

Taking note of the importance of additional financial resources to implement the Strategic Plan of the Convention,

Recognizing that the Global Environment Facility has made a significant contribution to the implementation of the Convention,

Noting that the level of official development assistance is of concern to all Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and emphasizing the need for a substantial increase of international financial support to the implementation of the Convention and the easier flow of such assistance,

Welcoming the positive outcome of the United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002 as reflected in the Monterrey Consensus, which represents a crucial step towards achieving the goals of poverty eradication, sustained economic growth and promotion of sustainable development,

1. Commends the Executive Secretary for the information concerning access to funding for biodiversity projects that has been provided on the website of the Convention;
2. Commends also the efforts made by some Governments and organizations to develop partnerships aiming at promoting financial investments in biodiversity;
3. Notes the recent initiation of the Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA) facilitated by The Nature Conservancy, the Bureau of the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971) and the Wildlife Conservation Society, involving non-governmental organizations, bilateral and multilateral agencies;
4. Welcomes the strong support for a substantial third replenishment of the Global Environment Facility, expressed by both developing and developed countries at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity;
5. Urges donor countries to substantially replenish the Global Environment Facility to levels higher than the current for supporting developing countries, in particular the least developed and the small island developing States, and countries with economies in transition, to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity;
6. Invites Parties and Governments, funding institutions and development agencies, as well as other donors to communicate to the Executive Secretary their funding procedures, eligibility criteria and programme priorities in relation to biological diversity as well as their experience in mainstreaming biodiversity into funding operations;
7. Invites Parties and Governments to:
   1. Share, through the clearing-house mechanism, their experiences on developing and implementing financial measures for supporting national biodiversity strategies and action plans, such as biodiversity trust funds and promotion of the private sector in supporting biological diversity;
   2. Review national budgets and monetary policies, including the effectiveness of official development assistance allocated to biological diversity, with a view to promoting the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, paying particular attention to positive incentives and their performance as well as perverse incentives and ways and means for their removal or mitigation;

8. Urges Parties and Governments, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Programme and other relevant institutions to take concrete action to review and further integrate biodiversity considerations in the development and implementation of major international development initiatives, such as the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSs), and Comprehensive Development Frameworks (CDF), as well as in national sustainable development plans and relevant sectoral policies and plans;
9. Requests the Global Environment Facility to explore opportunities to further develop, enhance and strengthen its catalytic role in identifying and promoting co-financing resources, and, also, to take definitive actions to explore and examine innovative and creative financing modalities to leverage increased funds from the private sector and non-traditional sources of funding;
10. Encourages the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to integrate data collection efforts on aid targeting the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity into its regular data-collection activities, and invites the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to provide information on financial flow statistics relating to the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity to the Conference of the Parties at its seventh meeting;
11. Requests the Executive Secretary:
    1. In collaboration with the Global Environment Facility, to promote coordination, coherence, and synergies in financing for biological diversity among donor Parties and Governments, bilateral, regional and multilateral funding institutions and development agencies in order to avoid duplication of work, identify gaps in activities, and identify necessary activities and funding;
    2. In consultation with the Global Environment Facility, to make available, through the clearing-house mechanism, relevant funding information including success stories and best practices of utilizing available financial resources;
    3. To explore possible cooperation with relevant institutions to address the need for centralizing information on biodiversity related activities of funding institutions and other donors;
    4. In collaboration with the Global Environment Facility, to explore with interested partners opportunities of developing a global initiative on banking, business and biodiversity, taking into account the existing mechanisms and institutions, and other global and regional initiatives or processes, with a view to increasing funding for biodiversity and mainstreaming biodiversity into the financial sector;
    5. To follow up on the outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development that are relevant to additional financial resources;
    6. To compile information concerning the impacts of external debts on the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and examine the possibility of utilizing debt for nature initiatives for supporting the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and make this information available on the website of the Convention;
    7. To prepare a progress report on the implementation of the present decision for consideration by the Conference of the Parties at its seventh meeting.