The Nature of Subsidies: A step-by-step guide to repurpose subsidies harmful to biodiversity and improve their impacts on people and nature.

Well-intentioned subsidies aimed at socio-economic goals can have unintended negative impacts on the environment, including biodiversity. The BIOFIN team has developed a step-by-step guide to repurpose such subsidies and improve their positive impacts on people and nature.

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From Subsidies to Sustainability - Rethinking public support to agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa:

As governments in sub-Saharan Africa face increasing fiscal and climate change-related pressures, improving agricultural subsidy programs has become a priority. This report looks at lessons from efforts to reform public support to agriculture in Malawi, Kenya, and Zambia, exploring impacts on soil health, climate resilience, economic growth, equity, and broader sustainable development outcomes.

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Repurposing harmful fisheries subsidies for nature and people.

(Forthcoming) By reforming harmful fisheries subsidies, governments can reduce overfishing while creating fiscal space for reinvestments that support marine biodiversity, livelihoods, economic development, and food and nutrition security. Successful repurposing of harmful subsidies will require collaborative action from ministries responsible for fisheries, finance, and social protection, together with other actors. Interministerial platforms can facilitate joint planning, programming, monitoring, evaluation, adaptation, and learning. Fisheries subsidies that play a social protection role can be instrumental in promoting sustainable fisheries, including by mitigating the shocks of reform, but social protection needs to be informed by fisheries policy objectives and associated management, and complemented by more effective monitoring of fisheries activities and enforcement of regulations. Repurposing strategies should be designed with the people whose livelihoods are affected by fisheries regulations and reforms, and with specific consideration for and outreach to people in the small-scale fisheries sector, who are often vulnerable.

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Fossil Fuel Subsidies are Bad for Business.

Fossil fuel subsidies cost around US $490 billion worldwide every year. They promote investment in the coal, oil and gas industries at the expense of renewable energy and energy efficiency – undermining the growth of critical low-carbon products and services. Reforming fossil fuel subsidies would create a “pull” towards low carbon businesses and facilitate investment in a fairer and more sustainable economy. In addition, making these reforms has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 13 percent by 2050. This ‘Business Briefing’ outlines why fossil fuel subsidy reform matters – for the economy, for the planet and for its people – and looks at what business leaders can do to help drive change. This includes the urgent need for a wide range of innovative companies to work together to make a stronger case for fossil fuel subsidy reform. The B Team has set a number of challenges for businesses, which include safeguarding natural resources and pushing for a reinvention of market incentives, more in favor of the planet and its people. For the business community to successfully meet these challenges, and contribute to genuinely innovative and sustainable development, the impact of fossil fuel subsidies needs to be fully understood and taken into account.

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Governments are subsidizing the destruction of nature—to the tune of $1.8 trillion each year.

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Fisheries Subsidies Agreement: Why It Matters.

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Rebuilding trade rules through WTO reform: what next for sustainable development?

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