At the 30th Plenary of the Network on Environment and Development Co-operation (Environet) of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), global development partners, finance institutions, and policy leaders gathered to discuss the future of climate and biodiversity cooperation. Developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Environet aims to ensure development supports environmental conservation and climate adaptation. Eva Gurría, Partnerships & External Relations Lead at the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership, joined the Plenary held in Paris, France, where several strong signals emerged. In particular, for countries aligning development, climate, and biodiversity within their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), the discussions signalled clear directions: integrate biodiversity into development finance systems, identify institutional constraints and enabling conditions for mobilising biodiversity finance, position nature as resilience to unlock finance at scale, and utilise country-led platforms and matchmaking.

Across sessions, biodiversity was framed not as a standalone environmental issue, but as foundational natural capital that underpins food systems, water security, infrastructure resilience, and economic growth.

Gurría reported: “A consistent message across discussions was that climate, biodiversity, land, oceans, and development finance can no longer be treated as parallel agendas. Biodiversity is increasingly understood as the foundational natural capital underpinning food systems, water security, infrastructure resilience, and long-term economic growth.”

For NBSAPs, this means aligning biodiversity with national development strategies, fiscal frameworks, and climate commitments such as NDCs. Countries that position biodiversity as economic resilience infrastructure are more likely to secure sustained political and financial support.

One of the most important takeaways was that barriers to climate and biodiversity finance are often institutional and systemic. Common constraints identified were:

• Fragmented delivery systems
• Limited cross-ministerial coordination
• Weak project pipelines
• High transaction costs
• Capacity gaps in project preparation and implementation

According to Gurría, this suggests that “successful NBSAP implementation requires more than identifying funding windows. It requires strengthening coordination between environment, finance, and planning ministries, and developing coherent financial pipelines rather than isolated projects.”

There is growing interest in mobilising private finance for biodiversity, including through blended finance and market mechanisms. But participants were pragmatic: private capital will only scale where enabling environments exist.

These enabling conditions include:

• Regulatory certainty
• Credible metrics and safeguards
• Bankable pipelines
• Early engagement with investors

For countries, this means NBSAP implementation must include enabling policies, governance, and fiscal frameworks within project planning and design.

Another clear theme was the growing recognition of the links between environmental degradation, fragility, and insecurity.

Within this reality, a strong narrative shift is underway: Nature-based solutions are increasingly framed as preventative investments in stability, resilience, and long-term security, particularly in fragile contexts.

According to Gurría, this broadens the policy space for biodiversity: “NBSAPs can speak directly to food systems, risk reduction, and economic security — not just conservation targets.”

During the plenary, there was strong alignment around the need to move away from fragmented, project-by-project approaches toward coordinated, country-led pathways with integrated pipelines, aligned finance, and reduced transaction costs.

This direction strongly reinforces the value of structured matchmaking approaches that connect country demand with technical and financial supply in a structured way, particularly for integrated climate–biodiversity solutions.

“The development finance community is not debating whether biodiversity matters,” Eva reflected. “It is debating how to operationalise it at scale under fiscal pressure.”

For countries implementing NBSAPs, the message is clear:

• Integrate biodiversity into national development systems
• Strengthen institutional coherence
• Develop credible, investable pipelines
• Engage finance actors early
• Frame biodiversity as resilience infrastructure

The opportunity now is to move from strategy to structured delivery to ensure biodiversity is embedded at the heart of development finance systems.

Learn more about the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership’s MatchMaking Mechanism and the progress of countries in accelerating NBSAP implementation through coordination and partnership.