The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of the largest regional development initiatives in the 21^st century, and provides finance and technology for recipient countries’ development strategies. However, many countries receiving BRI funding are rich in biodiversity, which provides essential social and economic benefits to indigenous people and local communities. Many countries have limited institutional capacity to manage biodiversity risk from investments. China is therefore promoting a green BRI and seeks to work with international organizations and BRI countries to address the challenges of nature conservation. This working group convenes experts to develop a toolkit to mainstream biodiversity into BRI project and investment decisions.

OUR APPROACH: we will develop a toolkit to address the gaps between high-level policies and on-the-ground compliance by business and financial institutions, through analyses of China’s BRI policies and practices, biodiversity risks in BRI countries, and existing best global practices. The toolkit will be adaptable across BRI countries (where policy frameworks and biodiversity information vary significantly) to identify how different finance and development approaches can generate the best outcomes for biodiversity conservation and the well-being of local communities.