The Caribbean Community, under the EU-funded Project for Capacity Building related to Multilateral Environmental Agreements in African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries will be conducting a workshop in Antigua and Barbuda on resource mobilisation and sustainable financing for biodiversity .
The workshop on May 18-21, 2015, at the City View Hotel, is being delivered in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD), the United Nations Environment Programme Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Government of Antigua and Barbuda.
One of the key objectives of conducting workshops such as this is to support countries’ implementation of the internationally agreed Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, which includes specific biodiversity conservation targets. One such target relates to mobilising financial resources for the wise use and conservation of biodiversity, including in sectors such as fisheries management, forest conservation, sustainable agriculture, protection of coral reefs and coastal ecosystems, and effective and equitable management of protected areas. Another target relates to integrating the value of biodiversity into national development strategies and planning processes.
According to Project Coordinator at the CARICOM Secretariat, Dr. Thérèse Yarde, “a main goal of the workshop is to raise awareness regarding how the two targets mentioned are related.”
She said it would also provide guidance and training on how to identify and quantify the value of biodiversity and use that as a basis for efforts to mobilise resources. The aim is also to identify potential resource mobilisation approaches and sources of funding.
Participants in the workshop will include representatives from the ministries responsible for environment and economic affairs. This, Dr. Yarde said, would help to facilitate cross-sectoral conversations essential for effective biodiversity mainstreaming, integration and resource mobilisation.
Presentations will be conducted by representatives of the World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy, the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute and environmental economist Jean-Louis Weber, a noted international expert in ecosystems accounting.
The workshop will serve as a follow-up to a previous Latin America and Caribbean workshop held by the SCBD in Brazil in April 2014, at which Caribbean participants identified a need for capacity-building related to “methodologies for the identification and integration of biodiversity values, as a critical precondition for the effective mobilisation of resources”.
All CARICOM Member States, as Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are expected to prepareNational Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), and accompanying Resource Mobilisation Strategies. Dr. Yarde said that while several countries have prepared their NBSAPs, most of them do not have the Resource Mobilisation Strategies. She said the techniques and guidance provided in the workshop are intended to assist countries in the formulation of those strategies.
