Knowledge base

In this episode, Abbie Trinidad, Senior Technical Advisor of UNDP BIOFIN, Bayuni Shantiko, BIOFIN Coordinator in Indonesia, and Dzulhaili Bin Dzulkarnain, Government representative from Malaysia, look at the transformative power of Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFTs). Since the early 1990s, countries such as Brazil, Portugal, France, China, and India have pioneered EFTs by redistributing public funds to local governments based on their environmental efforts. This approach incentivizes both the provision of public services and environmental protection. In Malaysia alone, EFT allocations have surpassed the $87.5 million mark in 4 years! Listen to the success stories from Malaysia and Indonesia and see how EFTs are revolutionizing environmental protection around the world. 

The BIOFIN Integrated Report gives an overview of Phase 1 of the BIOFIN Malaysia (2014 – 2019). It highlights results from the expenditure review and financial needs assessment that have been mapped to the goals and targets of National Policy on Biological Diversity, providing valuable information and recommendations to policy planners and financial decision-makers to better formulate their policy goals and prioritise actions to reach the NPBD goals.

The Biodiversity Finance Plan builds upon the Biodiversity Expenditure Review and the Financial Needs Assessment, is an 8-year resource mobilisation plan to make biodiversity financing a national priority and biodiversity needs are fully addressed in a timely and appropriate manner by 2025. It proposed nine innovative solutions to address biodiversity financing needs and achieve the National Policy on Biological Diversity. 

A Financial Needs Assessment is a comprehensive estimate and analysis of the financial resources needed to fully implement the biodiversity-related activities in a country to achieve its national and sub-national biodiversity targets. By comparing the expenditure on biodiversity as identified in the Biodiversity Expenditure Review to the financial needed analyses based on organisations sampled, the financing gap is estimated to better inform the development of the Biodiversity Finance Plan which helps prioritising of biodiversity strategies and actions and build strong case for resource mobilisation.  

The BIOFIN Integrated Report gives an overview of Phase 1 of the BIOFIN Malaysia (2014 – 2019). It highlights results from the expenditure review and financial needs assessment that have been mapped to the goals and targets of National Policy on Biological Diversity, providing valuable information and recommendations to policy planners and financial decision-makers to better formulate their policy goals and prioritise actions to reach the NPBD goals.

A Biodiversity Expenditure Review is focused on all types of expenditure contributing to sustainable biodiversity protection and management. Along with the public-sector expenditures, private sector spending and spending by international donor organizations, and NGOs are analyzed. Based on these analyses, there are calculated total expenditure figures, useful to summarize the BD financing trends and status on national level.