The economic value of biodiversity

The solution addresses water security and climate resilience in Ecuador by integrating Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) into public planning, governance, and finance. Led by the Banco de Desarrollo del Ecuador (BDE) with the GIZ Programme Scaling-up EbA Measures in rural Latin America, the initiative made BDE  a pioneer in water security through public banking. The BDE is currently incorporating EbA criteria into its budget lines, credit instruments, and project evaluation processes.

A key output, the Sustainable Watershed Management Guide, equips local governments with tools to design bankable, low-emission projects combining infrastructure and nature-based solutions. These approaches are institutionalized in local development plans (PDOTs) and coordinated through watershed councils, fostering multi-level governance and community participation.

Together, these innovations form a replicable model connecting finance, planning, and governance to deliver, climate-resilient investments for Ecuador’s most vulnerable territories.

This Solution focuses on spring source protection and pasture water access in Mongolia’s dryland pastoral ecosystems, implemented through the ADAPT Project with support from the Government of Mongolia, the Green Climate Fund, and UNDP. It addresses growing water scarcity, spring degradation, pasture deterioration, and climate-related drought affecting herder communities and livestock.

The approach combines ecosystem-based adaptation measures, including fencing and protecting spring sources, regulating water flow, restoring surrounding vegetation, and establishing community based management systems. By preventing livestock trampling and reducing contamination, the Solution supports natural spring recovery and improves water quantity and quality.

Between 2022 and 2025, 88 spring sources were protected across Khovd, Zavkhan, Dornod, and Sukhbaatar provinces. In Dariganga soum of Sukhbaatar province alone, restored springs improved water access for more than 30 herder households and over 30,000 livestock.

Climate change and rapid land-use change intensify floods and droughts in the Lower Mekong Basin. Vulnerability is particularly high in transboundary areas, where upstream-downstream interdependencies limit purely national adaptation. In the 9C-9T sub-basin shared by Cambodia (9C) and Thailand (9T) nearly 1.8 million people are affected. Facilitated by Mekong River Commission (MRC) and supported by GIZ, both countries established a Joint Governance Mechanism for Transboundary Assessment, Planning and Action. With a shared vision, the endorsed 9C-9T Flood and Drought Master Plan guides investments towards Nature-based Solutions (NbS). Economic analysis strengthened the case and enabled German funding for two pilots: (1) a constructed wetland in Thailand reducing wastewater flowing to Cambodia, and (2) rural retention ponds in Cambodia for water security and reduced flooding. Local Climate Risk Assessments (CRA) translate basin-scale concepts into site-specific Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) measures now being implemented.

In Mongolia’s rural administrative system, an aimag is a province, a soum is its district, and a bagh is the smallest unit within a soum, covering households and herder communities. Across 13 soums in Uvurkhangai, Dornogovi, Sukhbaatar and Tuv aimags, open grazing, weak coordination and limited land-use information contributed to pasture degradation. The Sustainable Land Management for Combating Desertification Project formed herder groups and co-management committees, introducing participatory planning, GIS mapping, rotational grazing, field monitoring and locally managed funds. Herders submitted pasture-use proposals at bagh meetings and helped implement annual soum plans. Seasonal grazing restrictions covered over 900,000 ha, while three plots in each target soum compared grazed and ungrazed vegetation. It established 109 herder groups, linked community knowledge with local government decisions, and created a replicable model for restoring and sustainably managing dry rangelands while supporting pastoral livelihoods.

The Arabian oryx became extinct in the wild in 1972 after decades of overhunting and habitat destruction. Its recovery required a long-term, multidimensional approach rather than a one-off, single release programme. Key measures included conservation-breeding; legal protection and enforcement; effective management of protected sites; phased reintroductions; and post-release monitoring. In Saudi Arabia reintroductions began in 1989 starting with Imam Saud Bin Abdul Aziz Reserve (Mahazat as Sayd PA) followed by Uruq Bani Marid in 1995 and several other Reserves later on. Recent estimates indicate that around 3,064 Arabian oryx live under wild and lightly managed conditions across 11 sites forming a coordinated network of populations across its historical range in Saudi Arabia, with the population showing an increasing trend (NCW 2026).This recovery demonstrates that extinction in the wild can be reversed when conservation-breeding, translocation and coordination amongst partners are integrated and sustained over the long-term.

The ENSURE Project combined Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) assessments with household livelihood surveys to strengthen evidence-based SLM and landscape restoration in four Mongolian aimags. A 2019 baseline and 2022 follow-up assessed environmental knowledge, conservation practices, training participation, income and livelihood conditions; the 2022 livelihood assessment covered 376 households. Results refined awareness activities, capacity development, livelihood support and natural-resource management. By 2022, the combined knowledge score had risen from 3.09% to 7.0%, conservation practices by 12.8 percentage points, and training participation 2.7-fold. The approach complements biophysical land-degradation-neutrality monitoring by explaining social and livelihood factors that influence land-use decisions. It shows how repeated socio-economic evidence can support adaptive management, although surveys do not themselves measure ecological restoration.