Globally, the availability of ODA has declined, with a marked drop in 2025 under the new US administration, among others. Given this decline, ensuring the effective use of the available funding has become even more important, and also, diversifying sources of funding.
An important role for public funding is to leverage additional sources of finance. This can be achieved in a number of ways, as outlined above. Thus, public finance can be used to support improvements in governance, research and in infrastructure, and to de-risk investments by providing guarantees or insurance, for example for carbon markets.
Another important source of finance is that of domestic public finance. Increasing this source of financing is important, not just because ODA is limited but also because it is unreliable, as has been evident in recent years. While the Congo Basin countries are already deploying public finance to support their agendas for sustainable development and green growth, its potential has not been fully tapped. One major reason for this is that they have high debt burdens which are a significant drain on public finances. Reducing these debts could be achieved through debt for nature swaps, or through taking into consideration a country’s natural assets as part of their debt negotiations. Avenues to increase public finance could also be identified through strengthening the fiduciary capabilities within government and by supporting accountability initiatives. In addition, fiscal reforms could be implemented to provide additional sources of finance, including sources of funding for PES schemes, for example, through increasing taxes on extractive industries or raising levies on exports, as is the case in Cameroon with government support for cocoa and coffee producers.
Another way to increase the availability of finance is to increase the range of financial instruments being used. PES is one instrument that is being developed within the region and debt-for-nature swaps have been implemented on a small scale. REDD+ initiatives are underway, and carbon markets are also being developed. Concessional finance is another important tool, for example, it can be used by governments to provide loans to companies for implementing sustainability practices, or to fund infrastructure initiatives.
A particular challenge for the Congo Basin region has been that much of the climate finance for forests has only been available for those areas experiencing high rates of deforestation, which has not been the case for many parts of the region.
There are a number of mechanisms being developed for such contexts. One of these is the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), an initiative of the Brazilian government. This was considered to be a potential source of long-term and predictable finance for the region, although there needs to be further dialogue to ensure that it is adapted to the Congo Basin context. There is no one solution however, and so a range of instruments should be explored and implemented. Furthermore, in addition to exploring new instruments, the importance of reducing flows of finance to activities that are driving deforestation was also highlighted. Repurposing subsidies is important for achieving this, and natural capital accounting can also be highly effective in shifting economic decision-making in favour of forests and the natural world.