How does the Biodiversity Fund work?
TheHivos- Oxfam Biodiversity Fund supports international and regional organisations that are now working to revive and expand sustainable methods and products and market them effectively, while protecting the rights and interests of farmers, fishers and collectors of non-timber forest products in the context of globalisation.
The Fund’s intervention strategy is based on increasing productive performance through improvement in seed systems and by strengthening the producers’ marketing capacities in order to secure a stable or increased income and improve livelihoods.
The Fund further aims to create the necessary conditions for biodiversity conserving production systems to survive and flourish. Essential for these systems to perform are farmers’ free access to a wide variety of seeds, and livestock keepers to a diverse range of animal breeds. Land rights and access to fishing grounds and forest areas are important prerequisites. A strong civil society co-ordination is considered essential to create, support and monitor these conditions. Because of the relatively scarce initiatives that promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable use in Africa, this region receives particular attention from the Fund.
What the Biodiversity Fund does
Strategic funding
: The Biodiversity Fund financially supports regional and international civil society organisations and networks.
Knowledge sharing and capacity building
: The Biodiversity Fund monitors and evaluates partner performance and impact. It builds their capacities. The Fund provides a platform for discussion and enables knowledge transfer in relevant areas.
Policy dialogue
: The Biodiversity Fund and its partners seek partnerships with the public and private sector in the Netherlands and elsewhere; it lobbies and campaigns at local, national and international levels on biodiversity and development.
The Biodiversity Fund is managed by Hivos and Oxfam Novib.
Hivos is a non-governmental organisation, guided by humanist values, that wants to contribute to a free, fair and sustainable world where citizens, women and men, have equal access to resources, opportunities and markets and can participate actively and equally in decision-making processes that determine their lives, their society and their future. Hivos works in 32 countries with 800 partner organisations. In 2006 Hivos disbursed 75 million Euro with a staff of 135.
Oxfam Novib, a Dutch NGO for development co-operation, is fighting for a just world without poverty.We work together with people, organisations, businesses and governments, locally and internationally, in projects and lobby.Because poverty and injustice are global problems, related to unjust economic and political relationships. Oxfam Novib works with 830 counterparts in 60 countries worldwide. In 2006 Oxfam Novib disbursed 180 million Euro with a staff of 350. The Biodiversity Fund is financially supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate General for International Cooperation.
Facts and Figures
Period April 2005 - March 2010
Annual budget 1,8 million Euro
Number of organisations supported in 2007 20
Implementing organisations Hivos and Oxfam Novib
Advisor IUCN NL
Initiator and current funding agency Netherlands
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate General for International Cooperation
Expenditures by sector
73% agro-biodiversity
10% non-timber-forest-products
7% livestock
3% forestry
2% fisheries
5% other
Topics addressed
— organic agriculture
— pesticides and their alternatives
— agricultural seed supply systems
— participatory variety selection and plant breeding
— animal genetic resources
— genetically modified organisms
— social and environmental standards
— intellectual property rights on living organisms
— sustainable resource management of fish, timber,
non timber forest products, agricultural produce
— indigenous peoples rights and biodiversity
Partner PHYTOTRADE
Would you like to see BDF-videos? Please
click here and
here.
BDF is also part of natureanpovery.net. Visit their website
MYHIVOS LOGIN
