Abstract:

Background & Aim: Following the decision made during the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) officially established the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) in August 2023. The fund aims to provide additional support to developing countries in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). This study evaluates the operational advancements of the GBFF, with particular attention to its financing mechanisms, project portfolio, allocation strategies, and alignment with the KMGBF objectives. Additionally, the research seeks to analyze the challenges faced during the initial programming phase and explores their implications for improving biodiversity financing and global biodiversity governance.

Progress & Findings: The inaugural programming tranche, initiated in February 2024, allocated USD 201.6 million to 40 projects spanning 41 countries through three competitive selection rounds. The distribution of approved projects reveals that Latin America and the Caribbean received the largest portion of funding, accounting for 43% of the total allocation. In terms of project scale, the median grant under the GBFF is USD 3.9 million, significantly lower than the median of USD 9.3 million for the biodiversity focal area projects of the eighth replenishment of the GEF. This indicates that GBFF-supported projects remain relatively modest in scale at this early stage. Regarding resource allocation, approximately 78% of the projects and 46% of the total funding were directed toward Action Area 1 of the GBFF (Biodiversity conservation, restoration, land/sea-use, and spatial planning). Among the 15 megadiverse countries eligible for GBFF support, 11 received funding, while China remains among the few without an approved project.

Recommendations: From the perspective of CBD Parties, the study recommends promoting diversified resource-mobilization strategies, strengthening the GBFF’s capacity to support transformative change, and enhancing synergies among financing mechanisms such as the GEF and the Kunming Biodiversity Fund. For China, as both a developing megadiverse country and a key factor in global biodiversity governance, it is crucial to design integrated, large-scale demonstrative proposals, streamline domestic application processes, and improve the preparation of essential methodological and safeguard documents to enhance approval success rates in the second programming tranche. As the initiator of the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, China should also clarify its differentiated strategic positioning, reinforce its role in capacity building, and advance more transparent and robust governance frameworks to maximize complementarity with the GBFF. Collectively, these measures can support China’s deeper engagement in global biodiversity governance and contribute to the effective implementation of the KMGBF.

Key words: Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, resource mobilization, financing mechanism