In the margins of the resumed session of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the COP Presidency and UN partners have launched the Cali Fund for the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from the Use of Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources (DSI). The Cali Fund will mobilize new streams of funding for biodiversity action and allocate 50% of the resources to the self-identified needs of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including women and youth.

These new streams of funding will support the three objectives of the CBD: the conservation of biological diversity; the sustainable use of its components; and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

The Cali Fund will receive contributions from private sector entities making commercial use of DSI. Its disbursements will serve to boost the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) by supporting the delivery of developing countries’ National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), bolstering scientific research on biodiversity, and bridging gaps in the way countries generate, access, use, analyze, and store DSI.

The Cali Fund was established at the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference last November. According to the COP decision on DSI (CBD/COP/DEC/16/2), large private entities that benefit commercially from the use of DSI in relevant sectors are expected to contribute a portion of their profits to the Fund. The decision provides an indicative list of sectors that may benefit directly or indirectly from the use of DSI, namely: pharmaceuticals; food and health supplements; cosmetics; animal and plant breeding; biotechnology; laboratory equipment associated with the sequencing and use of DSI; and information, scientific, and technical services related to DSI, including artificial intelligence (AI). Per decision text, “[e]ntities operating public databases and public research and academic institutions are not expected to make monetary contributions to the… fund.”

The Cali Fund will be hosted by the Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTFO) in a partnership between the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), with the CBD Secretariat hosting the Cali Fund Secretariat. During the 25 February 2025 launch ceremony in Rome, Italy, the partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) reflecting this institutional arrangement.

“Today’s launch is the culmination of multilateralism that delivers,” said UNEP Deputy Executive Director Elizabeth Mrema. “The ball is now in the court of businesses around the world,” she underscored. “Those who pay into the Fund will go down in history as pioneers and will reap the benefits as the public increasingly recognizes the importance of giving back to nature.”

Director of UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub Marcos Neto said the Fund’s success “will be critical for providing finance to people on the ground who are custodians for species and genetic diversity.”

MPTFO Executive Coordinator Alain Noudehou said the launch “signals a new era of collective action in support of biodiversity worldwide.” CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker, in turn, described the Fund as “an eloquent and concrete expression of business commitment to give back to nature, and a major win under the CBD.”

The Cali Fund is part of the Multilateral Mechanism on the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of DSI, adopted at CBD COP 15 in December 2022, alongside the GBF. CBD 16 in Cali, Colombia, operationalized the Multilateral Mechanism, including the Cali Fund and how it will function. [Recording of the Launch of the Cali Fund] [CBD Press Release]