Nature financing in South Africa and the wider Southern Africa region has just received a boost, as the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi), France's Office Française de la Biodiversity (OFB), and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) have officially entered into a new technology exchange agreement for the CAP4NATFIN FEXTE project.
A new technical agreement between the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), France's Office Française de la Biodiversity (OFB) and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) was signed at the Pretoria National Botanical Garden in South Africa. Image supplied.
CAP4NATFIN stands for Capacity for Nature Finance, and the project aims to strengthen the role of public biodiversity agencies in shaping an enabling environment for nature financing.
The FEXTE mechanism is a technical exchange project format funded by the AfD and approved by the French National Treasury.
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important results
The signing ceremony took place at the Pretoria National Botanical Gardens and builds on almost four years of collaboration between SANB and OFB.
The new project follows the success of the first FEXTE-funded Partnership for Biodiversity and Marine Conservation (#SA-FRPartnership4Biodiversity), which was launched in 2022 and jointly implemented by SANBI, OFB and South African National Parks (SANParks) with the support of AFD.
This partnership, which will continue until 2027, is delivering significant results for all three biodiversity institutions involved, including knowledge exchange, capacity development and stronger international cooperation.
Mechanisms of cooperation include study visits, individual workshops, participation in global conferences and technical products and consultancy services.
“The success of the first FEXTE partnership gives us confidence that this next technical exchange on capabilities for nature finance will be extremely valuable,” Sanbi CEO Shonisani Munzhedzi said at the signing ceremony.
“South Africa is still in the early stages of engagement with the rapidly growing field of nature finance.
“For Sunbi, this project will help clarify the role of the National Biodiversity Institute in mobilizing, tracking and shaping financial flows for nature-positive outcomes.”
Director General of the French Biodiversity Agency (OFB), Oliver Thibault, stressed that, as public funding for biodiversity continues to decline, innovative nature finance mechanisms will be essential to secure sustainable funding for conservation.
Marie-Hélène Loison, AfD Regional Director for Southern Africa, reaffirmed AfD's commitment to supporting countries in the region to strengthen biodiversity assessment and knowledge systems.
He highlighted the Agency's strong and ongoing investment in biodiversity, which is currently focused on identifying innovative finance instruments for nature and connecting with the private sector to establish long-term support mechanisms for conservation.
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The growing biodiversity finance gap
This initiative comes at a particularly important moment.
Sambi, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment (DFFE), recently completed a comprehensive review of South Africa's biodiversity expenditure (2016-2025).
The findings reveal a growing biodiversity finance gap that is hindering the country's ability to conserve and sustainably utilize its rich biodiversity.
In response, the CAP4NATFIN FEXTE project will strengthen South Africa's biodiversity finance architecture by supporting the refinement of the national biodiversity finance taxonomy and improving methods for tracking resource mobilization across the public and private sectors.
This includes developing a budget tagging system across all sources, expense tracking and performance indicators.
The project, supported by OFB's expertise as a technical institution, will also strengthen SUNB's institutional role in monitoring and reporting on targets 14, 15, 18 and 19 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, thereby ensuring the generation of robust, decision-useful data for national reporting and increasing private sector demand for biodiversity-related disclosures within the ESG framework.
This initiative establishes SANBI's Technical and Scientific Cooperation Support Center under the Convention on Biological Diversity as a central node linking public policy, scientific data and financial systems, helping to unlock finance and better direct finance for biodiversity outcomes in South Africa and the nine countries supported by the Centre.
The partners hoped that this FEXTE project would lay the foundation for large-scale nature finance initiatives across the region.