RP seeks $30-million funding from UN's GEF

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines is hoping to secure continued funding of up to $30 million under the United Nation’s Global Environment Facility (GEF) as it prepares to participate in the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) in the Convention on Biological Diversity to be held in Nagoya, Japan this month.

According to Carissa C. Arida, director of program development and implementation of the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), the Philippines is keenly eyeing two issues during the COP 10 meetings.

Aside from securing funding under the UN-GEF for the next five years, the Philippines is also carefully monitoring negotiations on a crucial proposed International Regime on Access and Benefit Sharing which will tackle cross-border biopiracy issues.

The Philippines has been a victim of biopiracy wherein endemic genetic resource materials were harvested locally and transported, developed and patented abroad, with no prior consent and without any benefit sharing to the country.

The GEF, established in 1991, helps developing countries fund projects and programs that protect the global environment. It grants support projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants.

The GEF is fundamentally a partnership for mainstreaming global environmental concerns into national sustainable development agendas.

The Philippines is one of the 17 mega-diverse countries and is one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots. It also belongs of the Coral Triangle which is home to 75 percent of the world’s reef-building corals.

The ASEAN region – to which the Philippines belong – has 34 percent of the world’s 284,000 square kilometers of coral reefs, 88 percent of whose coral reefs are at risk due to destructive fishing practices and coral bleaching.

Government funding alone for biodiversity and climate change concerns, thus, are not enough and multilateral funding support is crucial.

According to Arida, negotiations for the access and benefit-sharing agreement appear to be bogging down. Opposing sectors are arguing for the need for some non-monetary ways of sharing genetic materials especially in instances of biological control, improving agriculture and protecting the environment.