Bhutan strengthens partnerships to track and enhance biodiversity investments

Unlike certain sectors such as agriculture and fisheries, biodiversity is not an economic sector, which makes it difficult to track spending at the national level. To address this issue, among others, the UNDP’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) has been working since 2012 to improve biodiversity management in line with the CBD framework and is currently active in 42 countries, with a further 91 countries expected to participate from 2024.

Bhutan, located in the eastern Himalayas, is considered a global biodiversity hotspot and is home to 11,174 animal and plant species. To continue living in harmony with nature, Bhutan’s current (13th) five-year plan emphasizes the importance of ensuring that development activities reduce pressure on biodiversity and underlines the country’s commitment to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. However, the large funding gap for biodiversity shows that there is an urgent need to improve budget implementation by identifying and targeting public spending on biodiversity.

To support Bhutan in its efforts to protect biodiversity, UNDP BIOFIN is currently conducting its second Biodiversity and Climate Expenditure Review (BCER). While the first BCER involved only government stakeholders, the second BCER focused on collecting additional data from the private sector, civil society organizations (CSOs), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This is an important step for the country to strengthen the biodiversity financing landscape by mobilizing additional resources, engaging different stakeholders, and strengthening partnerships for a robust and effective biodiversity conservation strategy.

Bhutan's ongoing BCER will also support the revision of the 5th National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). The BCER aims to identify biodiversity-enhancing funding streams in both traditional sectors (such as protected areas and environment ministries) and less conventional sectors (such as agricultural production, water, and disaster risk reduction). This will help to align overlooked programmes with NBSAP targets and support biodiversity mainstreaming and the Global Biodiversity Framework’s call for a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach.

The BCER also compares budget allocation with actual spending and identifies gaps that could be included in the NBSAP to strengthen implementation by government agencies. In addition, it can identify funding issues between different levels of government that could guide the NBSAP targets to reflect the shared responsibility of national and sub-national authorities.

In support of the BCER process for public expenditure, the GLOBE (Global Biodiversity Expenditure) taxonomy provides further guidance for authorities to categorize and track their biodiversity-related expenditure and provides standards for appropriate attribution rates. By encouraging public officials to identify public spending on biodiversity through the Classification of Government Functions (COFOG) system and integrating the COFOG system with the GLOBE taxonomy, it promotes the accurate recording of public sector investment in biodiversity while facilitating better planning and resource allocation for biodiversity initiatives. The need for labeling and better monitoring of biodiversity expenditure in budgets was confirmed during the various workshops supported by BIOFIN, such as the BCER workshop on data collection in March 2024 and the GLOBE taxonomy workshop in July 2024, which was attended by many stakeholders from different ministries and sectors.

Photo: Ministry of Finance officials engage in a result-based project planning exercise.

“It provides a deeper understanding of the structure of government spending on biodiversity. It also helps government agencies to identify gaps and opportunities and engage other relevant stakeholders to promote biodiversity funding, policy, and outcomes through dedicated sessions such as those on allocation quotas," said Karma C. Nyedrup, Environment Specialist, Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC), National Focal Point for CBD.

Photo: The co-chairs of the NBSAP Secretariat Mr. Karma C. Nyedrup, Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC), and Dr. Karma Dema Dorji, National Biodiversity Center discuss biodiversity attribution rates during the GLOBE Taxonomy exercise.

“Integrating GLOBE into budget allocation and spending by the public sector, private institutions, non-governmental organizations, and civil society organizations can not only lead to more effective and efficient use of resources but is also critical to addressing complex biodiversity challenges and achieving the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework”," said Rinchen Tshering, National Coordinator for UNDP BIOFIN in Bhutan.

Under the National Biodiversity Financing Plan, UNDP in collaboration with the Royal Government of Bhutan has launched four biodiversity financing programmes until 2023 to help Bhutan close the funding gap in protecting its rich biodiversity.

Upon completion of the UNDP BIOFIN-supported Biodiversity and Climate Expenditure Review (BCER), Ministry of Finance officials will be trained to independently develop and publish the BCER in the future to track biodiversity investments over time.

Photo: Participants for the GLOBE Taxonomy exercise came from various departments under the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MoAL), Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MoENR), and NGOs.