| Overview : The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, the Environment, Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Immigration (MAFFESDI) is generally responsible for guiding the sustainable management of Belize’s natural resources. This includes, in part, strengthening the policy and institutional framework towards improved biodiversity management through the application of innovative finance solutions that will aid in mobilizing resources, improve service delivery, prevent unnecessary future expenditures, and increase funding impact. Multiple Trust Funds have been created in Belize over the years with the aim of providing a long-term sustainable source of funding for biodiversity conservation and environmental management. They have often also served as vehicles for bringing together a multitude of stakeholders – frequently to prioritize conservation and management actions that also respond to community and other local needs. Aside from direct allocations from general revenue, ETFs have the potential to serve as important vehicle for financing biodiversity and environmental management in Belize. However, improving the management of investments/funding, operations, risks and governance could allow ETFs to play an even greater role in financing biodiversity objectives and results. With financial assistance secured from the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) and the Capacity-building for the Strategic Planning and Management of Natural Resources in Belize projects, the Government of Belize is Commissioning an evaluation of experiences with current environmental trust funds (ETFs) in Belize as resource mobilization vehicles to biodiversity and sustainable development processes in Belize. Commissioned Works Will assess the pertinence of environmental management and conservation trust funds as models for financing biodiversity conservation and to provide strategic guidance for design and operation of various existing TFs for optimization. The objective of the Review is to look the current status of ETFs in Belize, identifying best practice standards for effective governance and administration and to provide guidance for innovations within the trust fund concept, and the cooperation of ETFs as models for financing biodiversity conservation. The firm is expected to analyze the current policy and institutional environment, operational framework, identify impacts, challenges, and opportunities and provide a strategic plan of operation for the optimal utilization of environmental funds and the optimization of ETFs in Belize. |
