by Dorothy Maseke
As the global biodiversity community gathered at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17), one message came through clearly: the challenge is no longer simply making the case that nature matters to economies and financial systems. The more difficult question is how we turn that recognition into investment at scale.
For Africa, this question is particularly important. The continent’s economies and communities depend heavily on healthy ecosystems, yet nature-positive businesses and projects still struggle to access appropriate finance. At the same time, financial institutions need credible investment opportunities, clearer ways of assessing nature-related risks and outcomes, and replicable financing mechanisms.
At COP 17, FSD Africa and the African Natural Capital Alliance (ANCA), brought together the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), African Parks, Standard Chartered, and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) to explore what is needed to mobilise capital for nature at scale.
The discussion suggested that nature finance is beginning to move towards greater normalisation within mainstream financial markets, even if it cannot yet be considered a mature theme. Institutional investors are looking for opportunities, but the supply of projects that are both bankable and genuinely investable remains limited. Advancing nature finance in Africa also requires connecting national biodiversity strategies with economic policy and financial regulation.
Three ways to support African investors in nature finance
Guarantees, insurance and outcome-based instruments were among the approaches discussed as ways of helping institutional investors gain exposure to nature finance while building confidence in measurable environmental outcomes. Nature-labelled bonds with use of proceeds directed to nature and biodiversity projects can help bring scale through public, fixed income markets.
Measurement is another critical piece of the puzzle. Unlike carbon, nature does not have a single, widely accepted unit through which outcomes can be compared. Developing credible standards, certification and verification approaches will therefore be important in giving investors greater confidence and enabling capital to move across projects and markets. There are, however, encouraging signs of progress towards greater consistency. The State of Nature Metrics and Indicators developed by the Nature Positive Initiative, which featured prominently in discussions at COP17, provide one example of efforts to establish a more consistent approach to measuring changes in the state of nature.
Disclosure frameworks have an important role to play here too. The discussion highlighted the contribution of the TNFD in helping create a shared language around nature-related dependencies, risks and opportunities. But disclosure should ultimately be a means rather than an end: the goal is for better information about nature to translate into better strategic, financing and investment decisions.
Policy action needed to connect global ambitions to local impacts
These discussions took place against an important policy backdrop. COP17 marked the first global review of collective progress under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), taking stock of delivery against its 2030 targets.
The review highlighted persistent gaps between global ambition, national implementation, and the finance and capacity available to deliver. Negotiations on resource mobilisation, the biodiversity financial mechanism and benefit-sharing also underscored that scaling nature finance involves questions of access, responsibility and equity.
For Africa, the practical task is to connect national biodiversity strategies with economic policy, financial regulation and investment pipelines, while ensuring that Indigenous Peoples and local communities participate in decisions and share in the benefits. This gives our work in market-building work a clear policy purpose: helping translate the GBF into financing decisions and measurable outcomes for nature and people.
The next chapter for nature finance in Africa
Taken together, COP17 conversations suggest that the next chapter for nature finance needs to focus less on proving that opportunity exists and more on building the systems that allow that opportunity to scale.
That means developing stronger pipelines of investable enterprises and projects. It means aggregation and investment-readiness support where individual opportunities are too small to attract institutional capital. It means risk-sharing mechanisms that give investors confidence to enter emerging markets and sectors. And it means better data, standards and measurement so that nature-related risks and outcomes can be incorporated into financial decisions.
But there is an equally important principle running through these discussions: scaling nature finance must not mean losing sight of the people and landscapes at its foundation. Nature finance can power new markets and investments opportunities, including in the bioeconomy and blue economy. But the long-term value will depend on whether those markets strengthen local economies, create opportunities for communities and small producers, and maintain the natural systems on which they depend.
Africa has an opportunity not simply to participate in an emerging global nature-finance market, but to help shape what that market looks like.
For FSD Africa and ANCA, that means continuing to bring financial institutions, investors, policymakers, businesses and other market actors together around a clear purpose: helping translate the GBF into financing decisions and measurable outcomes for nature and people.
COP17 showed that there is growing momentum. The task now is to translate that momentum into deal flows, functioning markets and financial solutions that deliver for Africa’s economies, communities and natural capital. With this in mind, attention now shifts to COP31, where many of these conversations will continue, providing an important opportunity to build on the momentum from COP17 and move from ambition towards implementation.
