Tunisia
Tunisia is strengthening its approach to biodiversity finance at a time when greater investment is needed to conserve ecosystems, restore degraded landscapes and support the sustainable use of natural resources. While biodiversity is financed through public budgets, international cooperation and other mechanisms, available resources remain fragmented across institutions and financial flows are not yet fully aligned with national biodiversity priorities.
UNDP BIOFIN is supporting the Government of Tunisia, led jointly by the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Finance, to develop a more coordinated and evidence-based approach to biodiversity finance. The Policy and Institutional Review has mapped 42 existing financing mechanisms and estimates current biodiversity finance at approximately TND 100–120 million annually, with public budgets providing the largest share.
The assessment has also identified opportunities to significantly increase and improve biodiversity finance through reforms to subsidies and environmental fiscal instruments, stronger ecosystem-based revenues, greater private-sector participation and new financing approaches. Preliminary analysis suggests these measures could potentially increase biodiversity finance to TND 300–600 million annually, subject to further assessment and prioritization through the BIOFIN process.
Building on the PIR, Tunisia is undertaking a Biodiversity Expenditure Review, followed by a Financial Needs Assessment and the development of its Biodiversity Finance Plan. Together, these assessments will provide the evidence needed to prioritize practical finance solutions, improve the effectiveness of existing resources and mobilize additional public, private and international finance in support of national biodiversity priorities and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
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Finance solutions
Priority finance solutions identified or emerging from the PIR:
- Reform and reorient harmful subsidies: Gradually phase out or redirect subsidies affecting biodiversity, including agricultural inputs, fossil fuels in fisheries and inefficient irrigation water pricing. Potential: reallocation of more than 900 MDT/year; a 10-30% reform scenario could unlock approximately 90-270 MDT/year.
- Optimize public biodiversity finance: Improve biodiversity budget tagging, expenditure tracking, coordination and efficiency of public allocations. Potential: increase current public biodiversity expenditures by an additional 30-50 MDT/year.
- Strengthen environmental fiscal revenues: Improve the collection and use of environmental taxes, fines and fees. Potential: 15-30 MDT/year in additional annual revenues.
- Increase protected area fees and reinvestment: Improve park access fees, tourism revenues and mechanisms to ensure revenues are reinvested in conservation. Potential: protected area and ecosystem-related revenues rising from below 3 MDT/year to 15-25 MDT/year.
- Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES): Develop PES schemes for forests, pastoral areas and wetlands to monetize ecosystem services and incentivize sustainable management.
- Financial sector mobilization and green credit lines: Develop biodiversity-friendly lending instruments, green credit lines and guarantee mechanisms for nature-positive SMEs and investments. Potential: 150-300 MDT/year through financial sector mobilization.
- Biodiversity offsets / ecological compensation: Introduce a mandatory ecological compensation system to create a new revenue stream while encouraging avoidance, minimization and restoration. Potential: 20-50 MDT/year.
- Nature-based tourism PPPs and ecotourism revenues: Expand private sector participation in sustainable tourism and ecosystem-based local development, including wetlands and coastal sites. Potential: 10-20 MDT/year.
- International biodiversity finance and INFF integration: Scale access to GEF, GCF and other international funds, and align biodiversity with SDG-linked bonds, debt swaps and INFF instruments. Potential: up to 50 MDT/year from international finance plus leveraging effects.
Key results
- Strong institutional anchoring: the process is jointly led by the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Finance, helping position biodiversity finance within national economic and budgetary decision-making.
- Stakeholder engagement: launch and technical workshops were held on 18 April 2025, 27 August 2025, 18 November 2025 and 20-21 January 2026supporting national ownership and validation of PIR findings.
- Policy and Institutional Review completed : Tunisia mapped 42 biodiversity finance mechanisms and identified structural opportunities and barriers in public finance, subsidies, private finance, ecosystem revenues and external finance.
- Subsidy analysis integrated: harmful subsidies were estimated at more than 700 MDT/year, with the broader estimate around 900 MDT/year and potentially above 1 billion MDT/year across sectors, compared with around 15 MDT/year in positive biodiversity-related subsidies.
Biodiversity Expenditure Review advanced: further consultations planned for financial/private sector actors and NGOs.