Biodiversity/Finance: GEF puts GEF-9 and blended finance at the centre of its COP17 pitch in Yerevan

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) announced on 15 October 2026 that it will use the 17^th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17) to demonstrate that closing the nature finance gap requires new partnerships and blended finance tools. The meeting, running from 19 to 30 October in Yerevan, Armenia, under the theme "Taking Action for Nature", will review progress under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).

According to the GEF, the review gives a mixed picture: action is under way, but implementation must speed up to meet the framework's 23 targets by 2030, and national strategies are being updated faster than they are funded.

Target 19 (focused on biodiversity) calls for at least $200 billion a year by 2030, while the OECD…