Dialogue on the Yerevan Biodiversity Finance Challenge

Together with the Armenia COP17 Presidency’s Flagship – The Yerevan Call on Positive Incentives towards Biodiversity, and Friends of Target 18, the 2-year Yerevan Biodiversity Finance Challenge (2026-2028) will galvanize renewed momentum amongst the countries towards Targets 18 and 19. The Challenge will support countries determined to make a major leap forward on Targets 18 and 19, with a focus on scaling up implementation.

As the first mechanism to operationalize the Yerevan Biodiversity Finance Challenge, UNDP and the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership are launching a “UNDP Funding Windows – Nature Pledge Flagship.” This call for proposals invites countries ready to implement innovative approaches to advance budgeting, monitoring, subsidies, and incentives. Supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and its International Climate Initiative (IKI), the US$2 million call will build on the work of the UNDP Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN), and its focus on national finance, following a theme that ran through the Kunming Dialogues, specifically addressing Targets 18 and 19.

This event has the objective to convene potential participating countries, technical experts, and financial partners for a strategic discussion on practical pathways to implement KMGBF Targets 18 and 19 through the upcoming Yerevan Biodiversity Finance Challenge (YBFC).

Specifically, this session will:

1. Preliminarily introduce the Challenge and the call for proposals, which will be officially launched by COP17 Presidency on 26 October.
2. Facilitate peer-to-peer exchange on accelerating the achievement of GBF Targets 18 and 19
3. Engage financial and development partners to mobilize co-funding, alignment, and technical support for the Challenge's country-level implementation.