Is the world delivering on commitments to provide tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming?

Targets 14-23: Implementation and mainstreaming

Halting and reversing biodiversity loss requires action across governments, economies and societies. The policies, financial resources, capacities, knowledge and participation needed for implementation, together with the integration of biodiversity across sectors and decision-making, are fundamental to delivering the Framework. 

Targets 14-23 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework focus on the tools and solutions needed to turn biodiversity commitments into action. They address three closely connected challenges: integrating biodiversity across government and decision-making; mobilising action across society and the economy; and ensuring countries have the finance, capacity, knowledge and other means needed for implementation.   

Integrating biodiversity across government 

Delivering the Framework cannot be the responsibility of environment ministries alone. Target 14 calls for biodiversity and its multiple values to be fully integrated into policies, regulations, planning and development processes, and across sectors and levels of government. 

Countries report increasing efforts to mainstream biodiversity and strengthen policy coherence. But progress remains uneven with particular gaps in areas requiring coordinated action across government and economic sectors. 

Mobilising action across society and the economy 

The Framework also depends on action beyond governments. Businesses and financial institutions are expected to address biodiversity-related risks and impacts, while countries have committed to enabling more sustainable consumption and ensuring inclusive participation in biodiversity decision-making.  

Progress across these areas is uneven. While biodiversity-related disclosures by companies increased among reporting Parties between 2020 and 2025, significant gaps remain in broader business action and sustainable consumption. Two-thirds of national targets related to businesses and financial institutions show no or insufficient progress, while 70 per cent of those related to sustainable consumption show insufficient progress.  

There is also progress being made in participation and inclusive and gender-responsive biodiversity action, but important gaps remain in ensuring that participation is matched by rights, access and protection. These include gaps in access to traditional knowledge with free, prior and informed consent, protection of environmental human rights defenders and the rights and access of women and girls to land and natural resources. 

Strengthening the means of implementation 

Financial resources, capacity-building, technical and scientific cooperation and access to and transfer of technology provide the means for countries to translate ambition into implementation. Here too, the picture is mixed. 

Parties report around 60 per cent growth in biodiversity-positive economic incentives since 2022, and international and domestic public finance for biodiversity increased each year from 2020 to 2023. Nearly allParties report strengthening skills and capacities for biodiversity action. 

But these advances have not yet translated into progress at the scale required. Only a quarter of national targets highly aligned with reforming harmful incentives are on track and evidence suggests the 2025 milestone to identify incentives harmful to biodiversity, including subsidies, was not achieved. Progress in public finance has also not been matched by private finance, which remains particularly underdeveloped. 

Knowledge and monitoring systems are also expanding, but significant gaps remain in the information needed to assess progress and guide implementation.  

The overall picture is one of stronger foundations for implementation, but a persistent gap between putting policies and resources in place, translating them into action at the scale required and monitoring the results. 

That matters well beyond Targets 14-23. Mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society while ensuring adequate finance, capacity and knowledge enables progress across the entire Framework. With less than five years to 2030, closing these gaps will be fundamental to delivering the biodiversity commitments countries have made.  

Complete findings and assessment of progress across Targets 14-23 will be available in the forthcoming global report, State of Biodiversity Action.