The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defines biodiversity as “the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems.”

The GEF has positioned itself as one of the main funders for biodiversity conservation in Africa, with a robust portfolio of 380 projects worth $1.27 billion of Biodiversity and leveraging $7 billion in co-financing.This publication summarizes GEF’s projects and investments in Africa over the last 27 years, and provides examples of successful or unique projects in the GEF’s different thematic areas: protected areas, mainstreaming of biodiversity in the productive sector, wildlife conservation, fisheries, the Nagoya Protocol, the Cartagena Protocol, and the Small Grants Program.

The 2018 report on Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests – a commitment that aims to end natural forest loss by 2030 – found that 40 times more subsidies and investments are made in driving deforestation than protecting the world’s precious and rapidly deteriorating forest landscapes. According to Global Forest Watch, one football field’s worth of forest was lost every second in 2017.