Biodiversity is fundamental to sustainable development, underpinning ecosystem services that support livelihoods, economic growth, security and climate resilience. Yet biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate due to unsustainable production and consumption patterns, land-use change, ecosystem degradation and climate change. These trends erode natural capital, undermine ecosystem resilience and weaken economic and social stability, with developing countries disproportionately affected.
Recognising this crisis, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022, provides an international roadmap with ambitious targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Achieving these goals requires action and finance from all actors, including businesses and financial institutions. However, current private action on biodiversity remains limited. As a global public good, biodiversity’s benefits are systematically undervalued due to market failures, and investment is further constrained by high risks and weak enabling environments in many developing countries. Together, these factors reduce incentives for private finance and investment in the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.
Development co-operation can play a key role in overcoming these constraints. It can help correct market failures, rebalance risks and align private practices and financial flows with biodiversity objectives, creating the conditions for private sector participation. This report explores how development co-operation can scale up private action for biodiversity in developing countries – with a complementary OECD report on “Good Practices in Mobilising Public and Private Finance for Biodiversity” identifying priorities for action beyond development co-operation. Drawing on extensive consultations and analysis, this report identifies three interlinked entry points where development actors can add value: strengthening enabling environments, promoting private sector engagement and mobilising private finance. Partnerships and collaboration are central to these efforts, with development co-operation playing a catalytic and convening role to bridge public and private perspectives.
Chapter 1 sets out the case for private action for biodiversity in developing countries. Subsequent chapters explore opportunities for development co-operation in greater detail: chapter 2 looks at strengthening the enabling environments to shift private finance and practices towards biodiversity-positive outcomes; chapter 3 at private sector engagement to help private actors transition to more sustainable practices and supply chains; and chapter 4 at private finance mobilisation, including through blended finance approaches and other de-risking instruments that generate revenues for biodiversity. The annexes provide a broader picture of how development actors are responding and the challenges they face in mobilising private finance and engaging with the private sector on biodiversity.
The conclusions of this report are intended to inform the work of development co-operation providers, in particular members of the DAC, DFIs and MDBs but also other bilateral and multilateral providers, including South-South and triangular co-operation providers and private philanthropy.