TWN Info Service on Finance and Development (Feb21/03)
26 February 2021
Third World Network

Dear friends and colleagues

Resource mobilization and the Convention on Biological Diversity

We are pleased to share with you a new TWN Briefing Paper entitled ‘Resource mobilization and the Convention on Biological Diversity: moving beyond the gap’. It is based on a full research dossier to be published soon, ‘Beyond the gap: placing biodiversity finance in the global economy’, which examines the track record of existing efforts and initiatives for achieving each of the objectives of the proposed resource mobilization component of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF): reducing or redirecting resources causing harm to biodiversity; generating additional resources from all sources to achieve the three objectives of the Convention; and enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of resource use.

The virtual informal session in preparation for the third meeting of the CBD’s Subsidiary Body of Implementation that will be held from 8-12 March and 14 March 2021 will consider the issue of resource mobilization, including the resource mobilization component of the post-2020 GBF. This will not be a formal meeting or a virtual negotiation, as there has been no agreement yet on moving forward in this manner. Some developing countries are concerned that formal virtual negotiations will be inequitable, disadvantaging poorer countries with limited capacity and resources and without good internet and technical capability, while posing challenges for regional and other coordination.

The key lessons TWN’s briefing paper draws are the following:

• Free-roaming capital and corporate-focused trade and investment agreements entrench drivers of biodiversity loss
• Voluntary schemes have a limited ability to reduce or redirect resources harming biodiversity
• Progress on phase-out of harmful subsidies is dismal
• Developed countries have failed to live up to obligations contained in Article 20 of the CBD and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR)
• Pervasive austerity, high debt servicing, and weak tax regimes/tax avoidance hamper CBD implementation
• For-profit financial flows for biodiversity-enhancing projects are small, geographically constrained, and in a perpetual state of “pilot projects”
• Market-based approaches like Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) do not represent a major new source of conservation finance, and have mixed biodiversity and livelihood impacts
• The return on investment in market- and private-sector-oriented initiatives, including the use of blended finance or public-private partnerships (PPPs), has been low or negative at a broad scale
• Emphasis on economic efficiency in biodiversity finance can expose both biodiversity and people to new market risks
• The continual belief in the greater efficiency of market solutions is rooted in economic dogma, and is not upheld by evidence from several decades of attempts to put these solutions into practice

The paper concludes that “based on the evidence a much more efficient and effective route for global action would be financial regulation focused on the root causes of biodiversity loss and the redirection and managed phase-out of harmful subsidies – in other words, committed action on the first pillar of the resource mobilization mission”.

It also makes the following five key recommendations:

1) End the debt-austerity nexus that fuels extractivism and impedes CBD implementation
2) Regulate finance and penalize industries known to damage biodiversity and the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities
3) Ensure biodiversity finance does not impede transformative change nor undermine CBD objectives, UNDRIP, and UNDROP
4) Reduce domestic and international wealth and power inequalities that impede transformational change
5) Act on dismantling class, caste, racial and gender inequalities that underpin biodiversity loss and impede conservation and sustainable use

The briefing paper is available here: https://twn.my/title2/briefing_papers/twn/Resource%20mobilization%20TWNBP%20Feb2021%20Dempsey%20et%20al.pdf

With best wishes,
Third World Network