Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday pledged $50 million -around Rs 270 crore -towards protecting biodiversity.
India is currently the Chair of the 11th Conference of Parties (CoP-11) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and will lead the world in conservation of biological diversity for the next two years.
Before making the `Hyderabad Pledge' on mobilisation of financial resources to the CBD, Dr Singh launched the high-level segment meeting of the CoP-11 attended by ministers and heads of governments of more than a 100 nations. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which had set a target of achieving 20 important measures in the next eight years, is severely cash-strapped and India’s commitment has given a boost to the Convention’s fund mobilisation drive. In fact, Japan has already announced its share of funds.
“I am pleased to launch the Hyderabad Pledge and announce that our government has decided to earmark a sum of $50 million during India’s presidency of the CoP-11 to strengthen the institutional mechanism for biodiversity conservation in India. We will use these funds to enhance the technical and human capabilities of our national and state-level mechanisms to meet the CBD objectives. We have also earmarked funds to promote similar capacity building in developing countries,” the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday.