By: Louise Brown and Toini Amutenya
Namibia’s unique biodiversity represents an important resource that sustains communities, and thriving ecosystems and makes a significant contribution to the economy. Namibia has a strong track record of biodiversity conservation, and its pragmatic policies that promote sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources have seen significant increases in biodiversity, including several endangered and iconic species, including black rhinos, cheetahs and others.
A new study by Triple Capital and ODI examines the role of policy and financing in contributing to biodiversity conservation in Namibia. It considers the role of economic incentives and enabling policy in encouraging sustainable biodiversity stewardship, as well as the role of donor funding, and provides recommendations for donors looking to enhance the impact of their biodiversity finance.
Donor funding has played a critical role in enabling Namibia to pilot new approaches to biodiversity conservation, including establishing and piloting community-based natural resource management, as well as piloting devolved funding initiatives to empower communities to respond to climate change. Government funding contributes to addressing challenges such as human-wildlife conflicts, as well as managing national parks and forests. Private sector investment into tourism enterprises enables revenue generation from biodiversity, promoting an alignment of Namibia’s development and biodiversity conservation goals.
Still, Namibia has faced challenges such as poaching, human-wildlife conflicts, land degradation and shocks to the tourism sector, all of which have led to losses in biodiversity-based income that affect communities, the government and private operators.
The lessons drawn from Namibia’s experience of financing biodiversity provide valuable insights for developed-country governments and donors looking to support biodiversity conservation. Effective biodiversity finance should be responsive to national needs and priorities, should be willing to take risks and pilot new approaches and test new funding models, and should be counter-cyclical, to provide a buffer during difficult times.
As Namibia faces new pressures on biodiversity, further donor funding is to design and pilot new approaches that will allow Namibia’s people and economy to generate revenue from biodiversity and ensure a strong incentive for continued biodiversity conservation coupled with sustainable development.
This study forms part of a series of case studies that accompany A Fair Share of Biodiversity Finance report by ODI. The report looks at how to apportion responsibility among developed countries for meeting the collective goal of USD 20 billion a year in biodiversity finance to developing countries by 2025, increasing to at least USD 30 billion a year by 2030, under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Two further case studies look at biodiversity finance in Mexico and Nepal.
Read the full report (Here)