Ongoing project Since

Biodiversity and development

CONTEXT AND ISSUES

As countries face the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, few proposals address them in a systemic manner. In developing countries, carrying larger shares of vulnerable populations exposed to these environmental risks, development plans and finance flows tend to focus on issues such as poverty alleviation, food security, or access and quality of water pursued through paths such as capital-intensive agriculture and industrialization. This in turn aims to generate revenue, mainly through the exportation of resources, to fund social programmes or invest in infrastructure. Past decades have shown that this model failed to deliver its promises as it has not benefited broadly, and it has even reinforced inequalities while degrading the environment (e.g., decreased soil fertility, water pollution). Beyond generating GDP, demands for development cover other dimensions required for a good quality of life, often linked to the integrity of ecosystems, such as health, or resource management rights.

OBJECTIVES

IDDRI investigates the conditions for alternative, biodiversity-based visions for development to be taken into account in policymaking. This area of work focuses on developing countries, as their natural capital represents a comparative advantage and as people’s aspirations include biodiversity concerns (Treyer & Obura, 2022). This investigation includes identifying governance mechanisms to scale up positive local development models to the national level (e.g., socio-bioeconomy), or the role that international financial flows such as development assistance and foreign investments can play to support these initiatives. This aims to:

  • Feed in international and national discussions on development, and the alignment of development measures with the Global Biodiversity Framework, to better reflect the contributions of ecosystems to development;
  • Foster experience sharing and mutual learning between countries on ways to implement such visions, as an emerging trend with little institutional mechanisms in place.

PUBLICATIONS