Angola allocated a little over 100 billion kwanzas (93.9 billion euros) to biodiversity in the last ten years, announced yesterday by the biodiversity finance analyst at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Aristófanes Pontes spoke to the press on the sidelines of the IV Conference on Sustainability in Banking under the theme “Sustainable Financing in Angola: From Strategy to Implementation with Inclusive Impact,” organized by the Angolan Banking Association (Abanc).
According to Aristófanes Pontes, the UNDP analyzed what has already been spent by the country in the last ten years on biodiversity conservation and found that “what has been done budget-wise is not very strong.”
“When looking at the General State Budget (OGE), it is difficult to identify line items directly related to biodiversity. What we identified concerns the environment and some environmental programs, such as environmental education and biodiversity conservation,” he noted.
The analyst defended the need to advocate with government to increase funding for the environmental sector, in order to achieve results for the commitments it has internationally undertaken.
The source highlighted that the UNDP observed that the amounts made available during that period mostly came from the General State Budget, and now they also intend to understand what has been done by private sector.
“We want access to private sector information and to see what the private sector has actually done in the field of biodiversity, but we already have a sense that it is limited, because what has been done consists mainly of projects with external funds, international funds,” he said.
The UNDP biodiversity finance analyst stressed that there is a need for a survey of what already exists for biodiversity, what can be improved, as well as to seek and identify the different possible funding sources, for the preparation of a concise document and the observance of discipline in spending these funds.
“At this moment, we are, specifically for biodiversity, conducting an assessment of what exists in terms of legislation, how that legislation stands, which sectors are directly linked to biodiversity, which benefit and work with biodiversity, what has already been spent, how they spent it, what is missing and what should be done,” he noted.
“This document is set to be completed in 2027, to determine the country’s needs in terms of resources for biodiversity through 2030,” he added.
Aristófanes Pontes stressed that there are many areas that require funding, emphasizing that a large part of conservation areas does not have effective management due to resource scarcity.
For his part, the president of Abanc, Mário Nascimento, said that there are still challenges for sustainable financing, requiring a joint effort by the central bank and the Angolan administration.
Mário Nascimento disclosed that an institutional team has been created, led by the Ministry of Finance, also including the Ministry of Planning and the National Bank of Angola, to build the entire framework for sustainable financing, based on six axes.
This discussion, added Mário Nascimento, will also involve contributions from Abanc, so that the constraints, of a technical nature, of the regulatory framework and the mobilization of financial resources can be raised.
