5.1.2 The FNA process
The FNA’s objectives are not simply to generate the best costing process for the NBSAP and other relevant national related strategies, but also to assess finance needs through a process, shown in Figure 5.1. This will be accomplished with a combination of a sound methodological approach and working with the right timing, format, and partners using a participatory approach. Key partners include the finance ministry, central planning agencies and other key stakeholders identified in Chapters 2 and 3.
Figure 5.1: The Financial Needs Assessment Process
The estimation of financial needs should be done at the national level, linked to national economic development planning and public finance (“fiscal”) management. It should be broken down to the level of the country’s biodiversity results (called “targets” or “outcomes”), strategies, and actions. This is so finance needs can be assessed at a level of detail that allows:
- Finance sources and solutions to be developed or redirected,
- Subsequent assessments of cost effectiveness, and
- Understanding of the required scale and timing of biodiversity actions.
Ideally this detailed FNA methodology will encourage improved performance through more effective biodiversity planning, budgeting and fiscal management (See Box 5.1).
Box 5.1: BIOFIN and Public Financial Management
Public financial management covers several aspects of government planning, including both revenue and expenditure management. The FNA exercise can be linked to a country’s public financial management process, and be aligned particularly with any reforms that are underway, to advance the mainstreaming of biodiversity finance into public finance and budgeting. The FNA should take into consideration the following planning and finance issues (as identified under the PIR, Chapter 3):
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Mid-term or long-term budget and expenditure frameworks
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Integration of Sustainable Development Goals into national planning and budgeting
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Approaches to detailed performance-based and results-based budgeting
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Decentralization
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Fiscal responsibility and transparency, and other rules
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Fiscal councils and new fiscal risk management initiatives.
BIOFIN acknowledges that each country takes its own approach to planning, budgeting, and fiscal reforms. As such, the FNA methodology seeks to provide approaches that can be employed in a wide range of country processes. BIOFIN’s approach is in line with international principles in public financial management as well as well-documented new trends in public finance.2
