Montreal, 22 April 2014 – US$ 4.43 billion has
been pledged by 30 donor countries for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to
support developing countries' efforts over the next four years to prevent degradation
of the global environment.
The announcement, made at the Fourth Meeting for the Sixth
Replenishment of GEF Trust Fund, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 16-17 April 2014,
further stated that the funding will support projects in over 140 countries to
tackle a broad range of threats to the global environment. These threats
include climate change, deforestation, land degradation, extinction of species,
toxic chemicals and waste, and threats to
oceans and freshwater resources.
The GEF is the main global mechanism to support developing
countries' to take action to fulfill their commitments under the world's major
multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), including the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD).
“This is a significant development. We welcome the efforts of
the GEF Secretariat and the commitments of donor governments to replenish the
GEF capital and thus allow the GEF to continue to serve as the financial
mechanism of the CBD and other MEAs,” said Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, CBD
Executive Secretary. “This will ensure that the GEF maintains its support for
developing countries and countries with economies in transitions to support the
implementation of their commitments under the CDB, in particular the Strategic
Plan for Biodiversity for 2011-2020 and its 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and
the updated national biodiversity strategies and action plans and associated
national targets.”
“However, this still serves as a reminder that donor
countries failed to fulfil the target set at the Eleventh meeting of the
Conference of the Parties (COP 11) in Hyderabad, India, to double the
international financial flows by 2015 relative to the 2006-2010 average,”
underlined Dias.
“This means that we have missed the opportunity to
significantly increase the investment on biodiversity to increase the efforts
for achieving the implementation of the Aichi Targets,” said Mr. Dias. “This
limited effort of multilateral funding, which represents a 30% increase over
the baseline of 2006-2010, puts undue pressure on bilateral funding, domestic
funding and private funding to compensate for this shortcoming to
meet the estimated funding gap if we hope to achieve the agreed
Aichi Targets by 2020,” he said.
The conservation, restoration and sustainable use of
biodiversity can provide solutions to a range of societal challenges. For
example, protecting ecosystems and ensuring access to ecosystem services by poor
and vulnerable groups are an essential part of poverty eradication.
Failing to pay due attention to the global biodiversity
agenda risks compromising the capacity of countries to eradicate poverty and to
enhance human well-being, as well as their means to adapt to climate change, reduce
their vulnerability to extreme natural disasters, to ensure food security, to
ensure access to water and to promote access to health.
“Without adequate funding for the global biodiversity agenda
the continual availability of biological resources and ecosystems services will
be compromised and impact the capacity of the business sector to continue to
operate and supply the market with products, services and employment,” said Mr.
Dias. “I encourage all countries to ramp up their contributions complementary
to the GEF Trust Fund to ensure a better and more sustainable future for us
all.”
