The BIOFIN project began its activities in Colombia in March 2015; hence, it joined the group of 30 beneficiary countries for this initiative, in which the Latin American group is composed of 10 countries.
Colombia is the most biodiverse country per square kilometer in the world. Biodiversity management affects the social and economic development of a large portion of the population; it is a matter of interest for the national economic policy due to its impact. The analysis and implementation of BIOFIN’s strategy in Colombia has allowed a detailed examination of past investments in protection, conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, inclusion of sectorial policies and strategies for fair and social equitable distribution to determine tendencies, financing gaps and opportunities aimed at meeting the country’s goals for biodiversity and the AICHI biodiversity targets in a sustainable manner.
Our strategy
- To optimize the allocation of current public expenditure on biodiversity conservation.
- To improve the effectiveness of economic and financial instruments related to biodiversity management.
- To assess, facilitate and intensify the participation of the private sector in biodiversity management in the country.
- To innovate in financial and economic mechanisms that contribute to financial leverage of proposed goals.
- To articulate biodiversity finance with peace, green growth and climate change finance.
Strategic Achievements
- Consolidation of BIOFIN’s technical committee with the participation of: Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ministry of Finance, National Planning Department, National Administrative Department of Statistics and National Environmental Licensing Authority.
- Design of a strategy and joint action plan between the BIOFIN project and the Readiness for Green Climate Fund within the framework of the Financial Management Committee of the National Climate Change System (SISCLIMA, acronym in Spanish).
- Proposal of economic analysis, financial valuation, and budget design, including the biodiversity variable of the first Colombian project to be presented to the Green Climate Fund).
- Participation in the construction of goals and indicators of the national baseline for Sustainable Development Goals (GDS), focusing on those directly associated with biodiversity.
- Connection and assessment of the economic benefits of conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the construction of peace in Colombia.
Contacts
- John Bejarano | Project Coordinator | john.bejarano@undp.org
- Bayron Cubillos | National Accounts and Expenditure for Sustainability | bayron.cubillos@undp.org
- Felipe Lesmes | Environmental Policy Advocacy | christian.felipe.lesmes@undp.org
- Jeimmy Velasco | Public Investment Projects | jeimmy.velasco@undp.org
- Mónica Carrero | Administrative and Financial Assistant | monica.carrero@undp.org
Prioritised Finance Solutions
COLLECTIVE PAYMENT FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES – PES TO BE FINANCED WITH CARBON TAX RESOURCES
With the approval of the carbon tax, as result of the tributary reform of 2016, resources was generated for the financing of biodiversity policies and of climate change, respectively. For an efficient use of these resources, BIOFIN proposes to associate the carbon tax with the PES, ensuring an integral approach to policies through the Strategy of Deforestation Control and Forest Management, which is key to controlling the deforestation and the preservation of the ecosystems in the country. The expect that this tax extends its taxable base to other sectors with high levels of emissions.
UNLOCKING FUNDS FROM AUTHORIZED ENVIRONMENTAL OFFSETS TO REDUCE DEFORESTATION
BIOFIN has being support the governmental efforts to boost the pending investment for compensation obligations, through the costing assessments of the obligations to establish financial information currently absent, in order to help the structure of a portfolio of regionally located investment projects and facilitate meeting points between pending offset obligations and investment projects.
ROYALTIES DIRECTED TO BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT IN PROTECTED AREAS
BIOFIN has being support the use of royalties in projects aimed at controlling deforestation and protecting biodiversity in the territories with the highest deforestation rates, through financial, technical and management incentives, trough investment projects formulated for deforestation control in protected areas, action Plans of the Regional Systems of Protected Areas updated with their financial strategy to be partially financed with resources from the National Royalties System, stakeholders with increased basic knowledge on the design of finance strategies for the Regional Systems of Protected Areas and the support on the construction of the National Policy for Protected Areas in Colombia, jointly with National Natural Parks of Colombia, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the GEF and WWF.
INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND SUSTAINABILITY OF FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS IN COLOMBIA
Colombia has development tools to collect data, standardized methodologies and analysis of statistical information about biodiversity, water, climate change and disaster risk expenditure, through at consolidation of Working Party of Green Finances.
In this Working Party of Green Finances participate the National Administrative Department of Statistics - DANE, National Planning Department, Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and UNDP-BIOFIN.
As a main result, the working party has been working on the pre-design of an information system to collect data on the budgetary executions of environmental projects in an automated and standardized manner. Thus, reducing the times for the collection of information, standardizing the sources of information and increasing the time for the analysis of statistics.
Progress Reports
The following document provides an identification process of institutional actors nationally, regionally and locally. This process is to be set with the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plan (NBSAP). It aims at promoting the construction of possible scenarios where actors can actively and positively be part of the biodiversity management process. Infographics were used to facilitate the understanding and relation of positive and negative factors, as well as actors. These infographics also contribute to summarize the analysis done.
Below you will find the review of Public Expenditure on Biodiversity in Colombia. It was made based on a tracking method of national public investing projects. This method works with selected and validated descriptors and uses an experimental logistic regression method.
On the other hand, the budget of 1.102 municipalities and 32 departments was analyzed in a subnational sphere using sequential codes from public expenditure review of such territorial entities with the classification method of expenditure identification. This method was used nationally and classified according to BIOFIN’s taxonomy.
On the basis of the foregoing, here are some strategic outcomes: annual investment in biodiversity is close to $243 million U.S. dollars, which represents 0.11% of the GDP, 0.49% of the national general budget and 22.9% of the public environmental expenditure of the country. These resources are allocated as follows: 38% for protection, 27% for restoration, 9% for sustainable use of biodiversity, 13% for incorporation, 12% for aplication and 1% for benefit participation.
The private sector invests an average of $30 million U.S. dollars at standard 2015 prices. According to expenditure classification of AICHI, expenditure has been allocated as follows: 27% for Restoration, 53% for Protection, 11.44% for incorporation of the biodiversity variable in other planning policies and instruments, and 9% for benefit participation.
Costing for the Biodiversity National Action Plan for the 2017-2030-period is calculated in $4.8 billion U.S. dollars. 85.9% of the investment will be allocated to axis 1 of the plan: biodiversity, nature conservation and protection. They are in line with the historic review of strategies showing that 77% of the resources were allocated to restoration and protection. The remaining 14% was allocated to the other five axes. The most representative axes are axis 3 (economic development) with 7.8% and axis 4 (research) with 5.2%.
According to macroeconomic assumptions of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, a comparison of the additional annual resources required and the business-as-usual scenario of the review, it is necessary to increase the average annual investment in $103 million U.S. dollars in order to cover the budget deficit estimated at $1.44 billion U.S. dollars and increase the average annual public expenditure on biodiversity in Colombia (2000/2015) from $240 million U.S. dollars to $447 million U.S. dollars (2017-2030),
BIOFIN in Colombia has an additional challenge: taking into account that the country is experiencing a process of economic, social and political transformation, many budgetary adjustments are affecting the annual amounts destined for biodiversity and environmental accounts in genera. The variability in oil prices, the depreciation of the national currency and the country's commitments associated with peacebuilding will imply additional efforts in public and private financing. On the other hand, Colombia is facing a situation of loss of biodiversity because of the decrease, loss or degradation of elements of native ecosystems and agroecosystems.
The Biodiversity Financial Plan was built by articulating three priority themes in the country's Development Agenda: 1) The consolidation of peace, 2) Green growth and 3) Finances of sustainable development (Climate Change and Biodiversity). The above in order to take advantage of the momentum that the National Agenda is giving to these issues, and where Biodiversity management plays a very important role in a transversal way.
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