Ministers, experts to discuss transformative initiatives in biodiversity mainstreaming and financing at CBD COP-12 event

A major side event to be held during the 12th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity is set to help the international community push forward efforts to put biodiversity at the centre of sustainable development policy-making and help effectively plug the huge finance gap for biodiversity.

The day-long event titled ‘Transformative Initiatives in Biodiversity Mainstreaming and Financing’, runs from 9:30 am to the evening on the 16th October at the Rio Conventions Pavilion in the Alpensia Convention Centre in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea.

Technical discussions will provide an overview of and experiences from complementary global and national initiatives that seek to:

• quantify the economic benefit of biodiversity and ecosystems services;
• integrate these economic values into national accounting and decision-making systems;
• assess the current expenditures in biodiversity;
• determine the future investments required to meet national and global biodiversity targets; and,
• explore challenges and opportunities of a range of financing mechanisms to address the global biodiversity finance gap.

The day includes a high-level roundtable discussion with Ministers and senior officials from governments and agencies. Participants will look at opportunities to advance, integrate and accelerate efforts to include biodiversity into policymaking and financing, including in the context of the emerging post-2015 development agenda. Scheduled participants include:

• Doris Leuthard, Federal Councillor, Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications, Switzerland.
• Ivo Havinga, Chief of Economics Statistics Branch, UN Statistics Division.
• Bill Rahill, Director Environment and Natural Resources Management, The World Bank.
• Nik Sekhran, Chief of Profession for Sustainable Development, UNDP

The high-level roundtable will be followed by a reception to close the day-long event.

Organising partners include UNDP-managed Biodiversity Finance Initiative, the World Bank-led Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services partnership, the United Nations Statistics Division, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biodiversity

The global initiatives organising the event are supported by the European Union and the Governments of Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

For more information please contact biofin@undp.org or yves.desoye@undp.org