Why nature finance and gender data are central to achieving the world’s biodiversity goals
The 17th meeting of parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) will be a critical moment towards achieving global commitments to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Nicola Sorsby and Karen Wong Pérez make the case to urgently scale up nature finance and advance plans for gender justice; and explain why these issues are interconnected.
In Guinea, women from vulnerable communities are working with international groups to increase their climate resilience (Photo: UNDP Climate, via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
CBD COP17 will take place in October in Yerevan, Armenia and mark a crucial moment towards achieving the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – the global plan to protect and restore biodiversity.
Key decisions are expected on how to finance this plan. Implementing the plan in a way that is gender responsive − the Gender Plan of Action (PDF) – is also high on the agenda.
Interim negotiations of the CBD’s expert advisory body on implementing the GBF (SBI-06) took place earlier this year in Rome, with outcomes setting the stage for what we can expect on nature finance and gender at COP17.
In this insight we reflect on where the negotiations currently stand on these issues and why recognising the nexus of nature finance and gender data is crucial for effective and equitable conservation of biodiversity.
Closing the nature finance gap
An ambitious new roadmap on nature finance was agreed in Rome in 2025 at the resumed sessions of COP16.
This included plans to meet targets to get more finance flowing to fund biodiversity action (Target 19) and reducing the amount of finance that funds activities that are harmful to nature (Target 18).
It also included plans to review whether the major funds established to implement the framework − the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) and the Cali Fund – are delivering.
Pledges to both funds are falling far short. Target 19 aims to raise USD$30 billion per year in new finance for nature by 2030 from international sources but so far only $386 million has been pledged to the GBFF and $1,000 to the Cali Fund.
Nature finance will be a priority as the SBI meet again in Nairobi (SBI-07) and at the COP17 summit in Yerevan.
Clearly, significantly more ambition is needed to raise funds to protect nature at the required scale.
But this is about more than volumes; more attention must be paid to ensuring funding reaches Indigenous Peoples, local communities, Afro-descendants, women’s organisations and other stewards of nature around the world – redirecting finance and decision-making power to the local level to support locally-led action.
Gender-responsive biodiversity data
The SBI-06 meeting in Rome also saw the mid-term review of the implementation of the Gender Plan of Action. The review was based on relatively few submissions (14 parties out of the 196, and 20 observers).
A unifying theme across the submissions was persistent gaps in gender-responsive biodiversity data. This data captures how people experience, use, manage and contribute to biodiversity in different ways, recognising that these experiences are shaped by gender alongside other intersecting factors.
Women’s organisations, particularly those rooted in Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant and local communities, have a long history in generating biodiversity data, drawn from Indigenous, traditional and community knowledge.
This data shows how biodiversity loss affects people differently, based on their specific contexts, gender social norms, and intersecting identities; it also shows what women’s organisations and women-led initiatives are already doing to protect nature.
This is why data is power: it shows what is working and, critically, what isn't.
Unnoticed
Yet evidence shows this data is not being recognised. This has led to policies that fail to recognise women’s contributions, address their needs and respect their rights.
At SBI-06, parties agreed recommendations on gender, but the final text was weakened by qualifying implementation "in accordance with national circumstances, priorities and capabilities". The meeting also missed an opportunity to strengthen Gender Plans of Action across the Rio Conventions after proposals to improve cooperation between gender focal points were dropped.
Recommendations for COP17 include encouraging parties to generate, use, and report sex, age and other demographic disaggregated data; make use of the tool that helps countries measure how well they are implementing the Gender Action Plan; and ensuring the full, equitable and informed participation of women and girls and of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, in biodiversity-related decision-making.
Karen Wong Pérez and Nicola Sorsby together with members of the CBD Women's Caucus during SBI-6 (Photo: CBD Women's Caucus)
Synergies between nature finance and gender data
While nature finance and gender are addressed separately within the GBF, the two issues must be looked at together.
Gender-just nature finance calls for a clarity around who receives funding, who participates in decisions on how the money is spent, and who benefits from it.
Data on nature finance must be disaggregated by sex, age and other factors such as ethnicity or income to track how much finance is reaching women’s organisations directly.
Women-led biodiversity data demonstrates valuable evidence on action that is protecting and restoring biodiversity. This includes data on nature finance.
More must be done to work with women’s organisations and women-led initiatives so this data is used in national planning, monitoring and review processes.
The whole-of society approach enshrined in the GBF calls for effective engagement from all groups, including women, young people, Indigenous Peoples and local communities. But participation is not enough. We need a ‘whole-of-society’ evidence system that recognises gender-responsive, community-generated biodiversity data alongside official data; including for data on nature finance.
Calls to action at COP17
As the SBI meet in Nairobi and as we look onwards to COP17 we call on parties to:
- Increase funding for nature to the scale set out in the GBF, including through pledges to the GBFF and Cali Fund
- Ensure funding can prioritise local action and that Indigenous Peoples, local communities, Afro-descendants and women’s groups can access funding and control how it is spent
- Strengthen ambition towards implementing and monitoring the Gender Plan of Action
- Recognise community-generated data and diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous, traditional and local knowledge, and women’s specialised knowledge as complementary sources of evidence, and
- Recognise that nature finance and gender data are interconnected: both are essential to the whole-of-society approach that is integral to the design of the GBF.
