Botswana is endowed with stocks of natural resources; minerals, energy, protected areas, crops, pastureland and non-timber forest products, which account for one-third of the country’s total wealth and underpin several important contributions that drive the economy such as nature-based tourism, mining and agricultural activities. Tourism is a significant contributor to the country’s economy (7.5% contribution in 2008 and 8.5% in 2014, expected to rise to 10.5 % in 2025 (www.wttc.org) and drives the need to strengthen conservation efforts in biodiversity. BIOFIN in Botswana seeks to facilitate for increased investments on biodiversity and close the resource gap.
Prioritised Finance Solutions
- Increased Commercial use of Invasive plants
- Review and Appropriately adjust protected Areas entrance fees.
- Introduction of a sustainability standard and certification (Eco-label) system for beef products.
- Increased retention of self-generated revenues by PA management authority.
- Establishment of a national parastatal to improve management of PA's (Incorporating solution 3 )
- Enhanced benefits sharing from concessions in PA's.
- Enhancement and expansion of the Botswana Ecotourism Certification system.
- Introduction and formal integration of biodiversity offsets in to the Environmental Assessment policy and practice.
- Accessing global climate change funds for biodiversity.
- Ensuring adequate financial provisions/guarantees are set aside for unexpected mine closures.
- Re-orientation of subsidies and support for agriculture to make it more conditional on biodiversity conservation practices.
Progress Reports
The PIR has been completed and is being readied for publishing. The process included a review of the policies, legal instruments and institutional set ups for biodiversity financing. Through the PIR, Botswana has been able to identify the priority sectors of focus for BIOFIN as well as recommendations of some of the finance solutions for consideration. Good policies and strategies are in place to guide the processes, however, weak institutional mechanisms to support implementation, fragmented responsibilities, and resource inadequacies, centralised decision making which also results in the resource burden on the side of government.
The BER is being refined and reviewed by Government and it will be completed by end of the year.
The Finance Needs Assessment is being refined and reviewed by the Government. the report will be complete by the end of the year. Using the BIOFIN methodology, the NBSAP actions have been costed. The cost of the NBSAP is therefore regarded as the finance gap.
An initial list of 29 finance solutions has been compiled and subjected to a three step Screening and prioritization process during the week 08th -12th October 2018. 11 solutions have been prioritized and currently technical proposals are being developed to a draft Botswana BFP. The process is expected to be complete by mid-December 2018.
11 finance solutions have been prioritized and technical proposals for all 11 solutions are developed to form part of the Botswana Biodiversity Finance Plan.
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