Interface Dialogue Finance and Biodiversity (IDFB)

The IDFB and its mission

In this project, Nature^Squared have been supporting the Government of the Netherlands’ in hosting the Interface Dialogue Finance and Biodiversity (IDFB) Platform. Between 2021 and November 2022, the IDFB hosted 13 online sessions and two in-person events, attended by a wide variety of participants including representatives from over 40 governments and more than 20 financial experts. These parties were brought together monthly to discuss and share ideas and learned experiences on how to address the global biodiversity finance gap. In collaboration with the CBD secretariat and the United Kingdom, Nature^Squared helps to facilitate discussion and mobilization of Parties to integrate biodiversity considerations into financial decision-making. The interface aims at increasing financial institutions’ understandings of their biodiversity impacts and dependencies through the sharing of best practices, experiences, policy development, tools, and data, so as to mobilize much needed finance to minimize biodiversity losses. Furthermore, the platform helps institutions and ministers to exchange knowledge on managing and integrating biodiversity losses in their financial decision-making, in order to align finance with the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). As time progressed, participants worked towards developing a shared understanding and the building of momentum on the topic of alignment of all financial flows in the build-up to COP15. The group worked to define and understand alignment, and to answer key questions such as: What is the alignment of all financial flows? Which flows need to be aligned with biodiversity objectives? Which the actors should be involved in what processes to achieve alignment of all flows? And, how can alignment be implemented?

The 15 IDFB sessions

Throughout these 15 meetings, a wide range of topics relating to the alignment of financial flows was discussed. Many speakers from a number of organizations, including WWF, the OECD, the World Bank, NatureFinance, and UNEP-FI, presented their work at these sessions and inspired participants with lessons learned, potential areas for future collaboration, and triggered discussions amongst parties and experts alike. During IDFB 5, for example, participants were introduced to the experience of the South African Government’s experience in developing a National Biodiversity Finance Plan (NBFP), and Nepal’s progress in implementing its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). These plans are national strategies developed by governments to align the financial flows of their public and private sectors with biodiversity-positive outcomes. This can involve actions such as ensuring subsidies do not incentivize practices harmful to nature, such as pesticide subsidies for farmers. NBFPs and NBSAPs will be key tools through which the Global Biodiversity Framework will be translated by governments into concrete actions, thus exchanging of experiences and ideas on these topics proved greatly insightful for participants. In IDFB 6, the roles of ministries of finance and other actors within the financial sector in mitigating and managing nature risks was discussed and highlighted. Later sessions of the IDFB gave participants insights into what tools are available to them for achieving alignment of all financial flows, as well as measuring and monitoring progress on aligning all flows. Based on the wealth of knowledge and experiences gathered throughout these sessions, the IDFB wrote a paper to capture all of these learnings: Finding Common Ground on the Alignment of All Financial Flows with Biodiversity Objectives.

The final IDFB session – IDFB 15 – was hosted at the COP15 in Montreal, on 13^th December 2022. This was a special session of the IDFB, as it was only the second meeting to be held in person, and because it was the final meeting of the IDFB. At this session, the participants of the IDFB were able to exchange their experiences thus far at the COP15 and to discuss address questions such as: How can we cooperate to take action on the alignment of all financial flows? What are actions to prioritize in NBFPs? Which tools are available? And, what is needed to further support capacity building? To answer some of these questions and provide guidance on the road forwards, the IDFB presented its paper on alignment, which includes a set of 10 Actions for Governments to Align All Financial Flows.

The Finding Common Ground on Alignment of All Financial Flows Paper

As part of our role in this project, Nature^Squared helped to bring together all of the learnings and insights gathered throughout the fourteen IDFB sessions prior to COP15. This paper was constructed with the help of a number of experts and organisations that attended the many sessions, who provided feedback and shared additional insights to improve the usefulness of the paper for readers.

The Finding Common Ground Paper seeks to define the IDFB’s understanding of alignment of all financial flows, providing concrete guidance on which flows should be aligned, by whom, and how. It provides readers with information on the actors and flows that are important in the public and private, domestic and international spheres. Furthermore, the paper emphasizes the need for governments to develop strong strategies in order to successfully align financial flows. Tools and metrics available for the government and the private sector to monitor their biodiversity-related spending and progress on alignment are presented in later chapters to provide guidance on how to operationalize and monitor alignment. Finally, the IDFB paper concludes with a set of 10 concrete actions that governments can already get started on to make progress on Aligning All financial Flows.