NEWS
Why Should Kazakhstan’s Companies Disclose Nature-Related Data?
Nature-related disclosure is becoming a new standard of sustainable business. For companies in Kazakhstan, this is not merely about reputation or alignment…
Bangladesh
Bangladesh is part of the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot and is home to diverse forests, wetlands, rivers, coastal and marine ecosystems. These include the Sundarbans, the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest, the hill forests of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and extensive freshwater wetlands and haors. These ecosystems provide essential services for millions of people, supporting food and water security, livelihoods, climate resilience and protection from natural hazards.
Bangladesh has invested in biodiversity through public budgets, international development finance and a growing range of private-sector and community-based initiatives. However, biodiversity finance remains dispersed across sectors, institutions and funding sources. Meeting national biodiversity priorities will require better coordination of existing resources, stronger expenditure tracking and additional public, private and international finance.
UNDP BIOFIN is supporting the Government of Bangladesh to build a comprehensive evidence base for biodiversity finance. Through the Policy and Institutional Review, Biodiversity Expenditure Review and Financial Needs Assessment, the initiative is examining the policies and institutions that influence biodiversity finance, tracking existing expenditure and assessing the resources required to achieve national biodiversity targets.
This work will inform Bangladesh’s Biodiversity Finance Plan, which will identify and prioritize practical finance solutions to improve the effectiveness of existing resources and mobilize additional investment for nature. The process will also support stronger integration of biodiversity into national planning, budgeting and financial decision-making, contributing to implementation of Bangladesh’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Finance solutions
The BIOFIN analytical process has identified a preliminary set of biodiversity finance solutions for further assessment through the development of Bangladesh’s Biodiversity Finance Plan. These solutions are not yet approved Government policies or programmes and will require further analysis, consultation and prioritization.
1. Biodiversity Budget Tagging
Introduce biodiversity budget tagging within the national budgeting and accounting framework to systematically identify and track biodiversity-related expenditure. This could improve transparency, strengthen expenditure monitoring and support more informed budget planning and allocation for biodiversity priorities.
Stage: Idea
2. Payments for Ecosystem Services
Develop Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) approaches that provide incentives to communities, land managers and resource users to conserve and sustainably manage forests, wetlands, watersheds and other ecosystems that provide important services to society.
Stage: Idea
3. Biodiversity Conservation Trust Fund
Assess options for establishing or operationalizing a national biodiversity financing mechanism that could mobilize, pool and manage long-term domestic and international resources for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration and national biodiversity priorities.
Stage: Idea
4. Reforming Environmentally Harmful Subsidies
Assess public subsidies and incentives in sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, forestry and energy to identify opportunities to reduce or repurpose incentives that contribute to biodiversity loss and encourage more biodiversity-positive practices.
Stage: Idea
Key results
The current phase of BIOFIN Bangladesh focuses on developing the analytical and strategic foundation for biodiversity finance planning. Expected results include:
Official launch of the Biodiversity Finance Plan by the Government of Bangladesh to provide a nationally endorsed strategic roadmap for strengthening biodiversity finance and supporting implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP).
Completion of the Policy and Institutional Review (PIR), Biodiversity Expenditure Review (BER), Financial Needs Assessment (FNA), Biodiversity Finance Solutions assessment, and Biodiversity Finance Plan (BFP) to establish a robust evidence base for biodiversity finance planning in Bangladesh.
Validation of the BIOFIN assessments and proposed finance solutions through technical reviews and inter-ministerial consultations to ensure alignment with national priorities, stakeholder inputs, and the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP).