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    NBS Invest

    Accelerating Investments in Nature-based Solutions for Smart Development Outcomes

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NBS Invest is a global platform that helps countries accelerate and scale nature‑based solutions (NBS) to support smart development, create jobs, and advance biodiversity outcomes. By mobilizing nature finance, improving project design, and deepening the knowledge base, NBS Invest demonstrates how NBS can deliver sustainable, cost-effective results across sectors.  

Funded by the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (GEF-LDCF), NBS Invest is implemented by the World Bank Group’s Global Environment Department. 

Highlights

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What are nature-based solutions?

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are actions that protect, conserve, restore, and sustainably manage ecosystems while addressing social, economic, and environmental challenges.

Investing in nature is a proven, cost-effective strategy that drives smart development, creates jobs, and advances biodiversity outcomes. Nature-based solutions (NBS)—defined at the 5th UN Environment Assembly as actions that protect, conserve, restore, and sustainably manage ecosystems while addressing social, economic, and environmental challenges—offer practical, cross-sectoral approaches to achieving development outcomes and reducing poverty.  

NBS Invest partners with World Bank Group projects across sectors—environment, water, urban development, social protection, agriculture, health, transport, and energy—to harness the power of nature-based solutions for cost-effective, smart development outcomes. 

Why invest in nature?

Proactive, planned NBS interventions consistently outperform reactive responses to climate impacts and natural disasters, and can contribute meaningfully to climate change mitigation. They help avoid higher costs associated with emergency measures and reduce the risk of unintended harm to people or nature. NBS could provide up to one-third of global climate mitigation needs and save an estimated US$104 billion in adaptation costs by 2030. This approach is particularly critical in low-income countries where overlapping climate and development challenges heighten vulnerability. 

Despite their potential, implementation and funding often falls short. Current investment levels need to be tripled to approximately US$542 billion annually by 2030 to meet global climate and biodiversity targets. Simultaneously, many countries face persistent barriers to integrating NBS into policies and development investments. NBS Invest works to close this gap by strengthening capacity, evidence, and investment for scalable and effective nature-based solutions across sectors.