The Kunming Biodiversity Fund is currently supporting six projects with a total investment of USD 1.2 million, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
China launched the fund during the 2021 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) and pledged CNY 1.5 billion (USD 207 million). It so far remains the sole contributor, despite recognition growing around the world of the urgent need for biodiversity funding.
At COP16 in Cali last year, the fund approved its first nine small projects, spanning 15 countries across Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America, as reported by Xinhua.
Six of these are now in progress, with each receiving about USD 200,000. They aim to: strengthen community engagement for conservation in Nepal; improve and monitor Samoa’s national biodiversity plan; develop a biodiversity communications and knowledge management strategy in Papua New Guinea; enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services in Chile; build up institutional capacity in Bhutan; and enhance biodiversity and forest management in Albania. All are set to be completed by the end of this year, the UNDP’s website disclosed.
Li Yonghong is deputy director of the Foreign Cooperation and Exchange Center at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment. He wrote on WeChat that the Kunming fund was introduced to complement existing biodiversity financing mechanisms, amid concerns about the ability of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to address long-term biodiversity funding needs.
He noted that some developing countries argue that GEF, as a broad environmental fund, is not entirely suited to biodiversity financing and that its efficiency, transparency and timeliness remain challenges.
With a faster approval process and smaller projects, the Kunming fund offers a flexible alternative, he wrote. It has not been suggested that the fund should replace the GEF’s Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF).
The Kunming Fund states that it is “open to all parties for contributions, including financial organisations, public and private donors.” But the fact that China is its only donor could draw into question the fund’s long-term sustainability.
Some nations are pushing for a fully independent Global Biodiversity Fund (GBF), separate from GEF, to better meet their needs. No formal agreement has been reached.
COP16.2 discussions in Rome last month saw governments and financial institutions repeat a commitment to increase biodiversity funding to developing countries, by meeting targets originally set in the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Those targets were for at least USD 20 billion to be allocated each year up to 2025, rising to USD 30 billion by 2030. The USD 20 billion initial target was not met in 2023 or in 2024.
See Dialogue Earth’s previous report on China’s biodiversity strategies and action plans.