Blue Capital for Prosperity and Climate Resilience

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The proposed project in the Maldives aims to enhance the management, conservation, and restoration of the country's decreasing natural capital. The unique natural assets of the Maldives form the foundation for economic growth, livelihoods, and resilience of its population. However, increasing anthropogenic and climate-related pressures are threatening the coastal and marine ecosystems. In response, the Government of Maldives has initiated Nature-based Solutions (NbS), primarily through the development of a protected area network. Despite these efforts, financial and technical limitations hinder effective management and the expansion of NbS. The project plans to address these gaps by implementing two key components. The first component focuses on enabling long-term financing for the protected area network and broader NbS, including the design and establishment of a Biodiversity Conservation Trust Fund, referred to as Maldives Nature Fund (MNF). The second component focuses on expanding and strengthening NbS, to enhance on-the-ground activities, build government capacity, and increase mature protected areas eligible for funding from the MNF. The project’s third component involves project management, monitoring, and knowledge sharing, allocating funds to overseeing agencies for effective implementation and comprehensive monitoring of the project's progress and outcomes.The 2023 Maldives Country Environmental Analysis recommends establishing a Biodiversity Conservation Trust Fund (BCTF) to improve the financing for the management of protected areas and other NbS. Following international best-practice, the purpose of the BCTF or the MNF would be to provide sustainable funding for conservation and to finance a portion of the long-term administrative costs of the protected area network. In particular, the MNF would include funding windows to finance a broader range of NbS with climate and biodiversity benefits. The MNF can be an effective way to mobilize large amounts of additional funding for from domestic and international sources, the public and the private sector, including philanthropies. The MNF raises funds, used as sinking and/or endowment, and for the latter, the returns are used to finance conservation projects implemented by government agencies (such as national park services), NGOs and community groups. In addition, the MNF could provide technical support and fund institutional capacity building for their grantees. Importantly, these financing mechanisms allow to leverage and capture resources that would not be otherwise captured by the country, so are additional to all financial flows, while allowing to develop long term, technical, financial, networking and awareness capacities that are key to implement larger scale, longer term and therefore impactful, NbS for climate resilience.