Significant amounts of Belgian public funding for biodiversity will be needed to meet the 2030 political ambition. The first step is to estimate the funding gap for biodiversity, i.e. the difference between the funding needs to meet the 2030 biodiversity targets and current nature-related spending. In Belgium, there are a number of obstacles to estimating the biodiversity funding gap. Several changes at federal and regional levels would make the assessment of biodiversity funding needs and the monitoring of current biodiversity spending more detailed and accurate.

First, there is an urgent need for more frequent, accurate and transparent monitoring and reporting of public funding for biodiversity, both in terms of national and international expenditure, especially in the context of cooperation projects. The Trinomics report points out that publicly available information on current expenditure, at a level of detail sufficient to track it, is currently completely lacking, apart from Official Development Aid (ODA). If possible, the introduction of common biodiversity expenditure reporting applicable to all federal and regional funding instruments would greatly facilitate the estimation of the biodiversity financial gap. However, regarding ODA reporting, it would have to be adapted for regional governments to their specific circumstances and context.

Second, the different Belgian authorities need to better understand and describe their 2030 biodiversity targets, in particular by defining the expected outcomes of the biodiversity targets, the activities planned to achieve these outcomes and the estimated budget for implementing these activities. Finally, the frequency of reporting on budgeted and actual expenditure should be increased. This would improve the accuracy of the estimates.