Ever since 1996, when the Global Environment Facility (GEF) was accepted by the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as the institutional structure to operate the financial mechanism of the Convention, the GEF has provided essential support to Parties.
However, in COP 16 being held in Cali Colombia, a section of parties is now calling for a separate fund from GEF which serves as financial mechanism for six conventions.
The six conventions under GEF include: The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Minamata Convention on Mercury, and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement.
Kenya like many other parties has been able to receive funds from GEF with the recent according to the Kenyan delegation being in the GEF 8 STAR allocation where it received 13.06 million USD for biodiversity projects in the country.
However, most countries/parties have cited difficulties trying to access the funds due to lengthy procedures especially African countries.
Linda Kosgei the head of Multilateral Environmental Agreements Directorate Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry in Kenya says “Accessing biodiversity fund has its own procedures and processes and from the Africa group perspective sometimes these processes are too lengthy too taxing and the call has been we need to have a more simplified process where countries are able to make their applications to undergo rigorous processes before they access their funding.”
She further says, “The processes are now it’s more inhibiting to many countries and not many are able to do the applications as possible because of the processes that are involved.” Africa and Kenya included are now calling for a dedicated fund that can be a basket fund for biodiversity which can be more simplified.
Aside from this, Kenya is doing resource mobilizations from many other partners as it continues to do a comprehensive mobilization strategy for the implementation of the NBSAP. To widen the pool of finances some of the areas being explored is the private sector, how they can come in in terms of financing, employing a whole government whole society approach.
(This story was produced as part of the 2024 CBD COP 16 Fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.)
