Healthy ecosystems and flourishing biodiversity sustain human life. Development finance is critical to conserve and restore these – but finance alone cannot prevent ecosystem collapse. Since biodiversity loss does not respect borders, a concerted approach across governments is needed for preservation and sustainability efforts to be effective.
The benefits of doing so are myriad: biodiversity supports jobs, enhances food security, mitigates disaster risk and improves health. For example, restoring mangroves creates employment, provides nursery grounds for commercial fisheries, reduces storm surge risk and absorbs marine pollution.
In short, nature restoration is an investment in sustainable development rather than an environmental cost. Greater development co-operation for biodiversity would allow governments to capture the economic, social and environmental returns of restoring and protecting nature.
Underfunding and narrow priorities inhibit progress
While there has been progress towards biodiversity targets, nature restoration remains underfunded compared to other areas. Official development finance for biodiversity ranges between USD 18.9 billion and USD 34.2 billion per year, far below the USD 700 billion needed each year to implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
As countries increasingly face competing budgetary pressures across a host of areas, this gap is likely to become even more pronounced. Adding to this, recent political shifts may hamper efforts to make biodiversity a political priority. As a result, biodiversity promotion and protection risks being pigeonholed to sectors with direct nature-related value, such as forestry or fishing.
How to make biodiversity a development priority
Instead, a whole-of-government, transformative change approach is needed to address the structural and systemic drivers of biodiversity loss. Governing the Nature Restoration State (blog co-author Kirsop-Taylor’s book) shows what a governance mission of national nature restoration could look like.
Aligning policy, budgets and institutions with nature requires a mosaic of small shifts across multiple levels. Done right, these can create transformative change and encourage governments to step up their biodiversity commitments.
For example, to halt illegal deforestation by 2030 in Brazil, the government introduced an action plan with specific targets, created a fund to direct financing to forest preservation, established a new Federal Ministry for Indigenous Peoples, and repurposed existing public organisations towards afforestation and agroecology. Seeing the change this mission-focused approach was making, major providers were drawn in to further support these efforts.
Drawing from this example and the OECD’s alignment and nature-positive reports, providers can make nature restoration a development priority by:
- aligning their development finance with national government-led missions for nature restoration, especially institutional change;
- supporting public financial management reforms that promote nature restoration, such as incorporating natural capital approaches into institutional decision-making;
- strengthening in-country mainstreaming systems and cross-ministerial co-ordination through capacity development, incentive structures and institutional transformation;
- de-risking investments in nature by building investor confidence, accountability mechanisms and legal structures.
Similarly, recipient countries can make nature restoration a government mission by:
- building a comprehensive plan for national nature restoration;
- assigning a dedicated high-level political appointee with a wide remit to lead the nature restoration mission;
- establishing a cross-governmental organisation for national nature restoration.
A shared mission with diverse approaches
Addressing biodiversity loss requires a consensus across countries. However, given the unique history, culture, institutions and challenges of each country, national nature restoration missions should reflect individual priorities and contexts.
For example, small island developing states may prioritise coastal ecosystem restoration, maintaining and enhancing freshwater ecosystem services, and enhancing eco-tourism. Meanwhile, forest-rich countries may anchor their mission in the preservation and fair use of resources, promoting carbon credits, and managing sustainable agro-forestry industries.
As countries consider their 'national missions for nature', the 2026 UN Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties (CBD COP17) offers an opportunity to discuss how to make these missions work together to ensure that nature restoration becomes a shared global goal.
