Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia

Under the frame of the Biodiversity Finance Initiative ‘’BIOFIN’’ launched by the UNDP , the Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, Solomon Pavliashvili met with financial expert in the Environmental Field, Marko Arlou and Senior Advisor in Technical Issues David Meyer. At the meeting, the sides discussed implementation of the Biodiversity Financial Initiative in Georgia and underlined the importance of donor’s financial support in this regard. The Deputy Minister highlighted issues, regarding  protection, development and conservation of biodiversity in Georgia and stressed the importance of implementation of obligations taken by Georgia in the harmonization process of Georgian legislation with the EU legislation.
At the meeting, Solomon Pavliashvili defined protected areas as one of the priority directions in terms of protection and sustainability of biodiversity and ecosystems.
The Deputy Minister spoke about the importance of implementation of state policy in the field of environmental protection. The two sides emphasized international financial support, exchange of experience with Georgian partners and expressed their willingness for future cooperation.
The importance of results achieved by Georgia within the project was underlined both in local and regional context. At this stage, financial plan related to the biodiversity financial initiative is being prepared, which will include  specific ways to improve biodiversity funding.
Georgia's active participation in the Third Global Conference on Biodiversity Financial Initiative,  where high level representatives of 35 countries were informed about challenges facing biodiversity protection in Georgia along with the importance of fulfillment of obligations under the Global Convention on Biodiversity and the role of biopsy in the implementation of these obligations aiming to achieve objectives- was also stressed at the meeting.
For more detailed information, the BIOFIN project was launched in Georgia in 2016, aiming to evaluate the cost and needs of biodiversity and develop financial solutions to these needs through specially developed methodology.