The National Environmental Fund (NEF) was established through Statutory Instrument No. 70 of 2010. It is a mechanism that aims at ensuring access to financial resources to maintain and enhance the national environmental management agenda. Its primary mandate is to provide long-term financing for sustainable environmental and natural resource management. The fundable activities are defined within the context of the national environmental agenda and are pursued following application of the sustainable development concept.

The NEF was established in part, as a response to the reduced financial assistance to non-state actors including local communities from development partners. Donor agencies reduced their funding of non-state actors including local communities once Botswana was elevated to an upper middle income status. This affected the involvement of non-state actors including local communities in project implementation within the environment and development domain as some of the NGOs closed down due to a lack of funding and insufficient staffing levels.

The establishment of the NEF has enabled for the government of Botswana to provide sustainable finance to non-state actors including local communities involved in the management of environment at the local level. It has, importantly, enabled for an increase in the pool of non-state actors including local communities involved in this regard.

Since NEF inception a total of Forty Seven (47) projects have been funded to the tune of  P39,309,882.78, equivalent of US$ 2,978,802.