In the wake of the coronavirus disease pandemic, governments, development institutions, and the private sector must work together to achieve a nature-positive recovery, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Vice-President Ahmed M. Saeed told the opening of a webinar on Financing Nature and Diversity.
“One lesson we should all have learned, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, is that we can no longer manage environmental pressures separately. Governments and businesses need to work together to achieve a nature-positive recovery.”
To promote nature-positive approaches, ADB is establishing a Natural Capital Lab, which will operate in four main areas.
The lab will become a platform where existing approaches can be learned and used with open access.First, through knowledge sharing, it will leverage some of the tools that already exist to capture the value of ecosystem services.
Second, the lab will be a hub to share policy instruments, institutional and regulatory frameworks to incentivize nature-positive investments and discourage activities leading to environment degradation.
Third, the lab will catalyze sustainable finance, including through the private sector. Fourth, the natural capital lab will build partnerships to share knowledge across sectors and regions.
The webinar participants examined the role of multilateral development banks, governments, and development partners to mobilize private capital for natural capital investments.
The webinar was held in preparation for the formal launch of the Natural Capital Lab, planned for the Conference on Biodiversity in Kunming in May 2021.
ORIENT news