The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partners launched a new white paper - supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety - From Silos to Synergies, capturing insights from a global dialogue series on how to better connect efforts to slow climate change, protect biodiversity and end land degradation.
As nations prepare for the next cycle of global commitments under the Rio Conventions and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the message from the white paper is clear: working in isolation is no longer an option.
“If countries connect their climate, nature and land efforts, they can deliver faster, fairer and more resilient outcomes,” said Mirey Atallah, Chief, Adaptation and Resilience Branch of UNEP’s Climate Change Division. “This kind of alignment is critical to pick up the solutions pace on par with the accelerating pace of these crises.”
For years, countries have developed climate plans, biodiversity strategies and land-use policies separately. Each has followed its own rules and timelines. This separation has led to duplicated efforts, capacity constraints, slow progress and missed opportunities to deliver environmental and development benefits together.
“The dialogues supported by Germany gathered participants across government, science, civil society, private sector and international organizations. The outcomes led to this paper emphasizing that closing these gaps is not just about improving systems – it is about building trust, aligning priorities and making institutions work together,” said the country’s State Secretary, Jochen Flasbarth.
The white paper highlights three areas where better coordination can make a lasting difference: planning, financing and how countries monitor their environmental progress. Together, these shifts can help stakeholders use their resources more effectively and deliver stronger, more equitable results for climate, land, nature and people.
Integrated planning and policy coherence
Integrated planning is critical for mutually reinforcing implementation of the Rio Conventions, yet nationally determined contributions, national adaptation plans, national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and land degradation neutrality targets still advance through misaligned cycles, siloed mandates and fragmented data systems. Persistent barriers include weak cross-ministerial authority, differing planning timelines, limited incentives for collaboration and disconnected information systems. Strengthening political commitment, clarifying mandates and embedding Rio Convention targets into national budget processes were identified as essential steps.
Promising examples already exist. Multilevel coordination is improving, using spatial and landscape planning to translate global goals into local action and applying tools such as GIZ's integrated planning checklist to identify synergies. Experiences from Colombia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia and Kenya show how mapping high-biodiversity, high-carbon ecosystems and integrating local livelihood concerns into resource management can deliver climate, biodiversity and socio-economic benefits when supported by enabling governance structures.
Synergistic finance
Finance remains one of the greatest obstacles. While recognition of the interdependence between climate, biodiversity and land agendas is growing, financial flows remain fragmented: climate finance dominates, whereas biodiversity and land restoration often lag behind. Structural challenges persist, including the small scale and short horizons of projects, a crowded funding landscape, and weak revenue models for ecosystem services.
Countries are starting to respond by strengthening domestic finance systems through integrated budget tagging, cross-government coordination bodies and the inclusion of Rio Convention targets in national financing strategies. Internationally, new country-led platforms are emerging to align grants, concessional finance and private investment, while donor support for integrated action is increasing. Blended finance structures such as guarantees, first-loss tranches and landscape portfolios are growing in private capital. Rwanda’s integrated land-restoration planning illustrates how coordinated financing can reduce costs and increase impact.
Harmonized monitoring and reporting
Monitoring and reporting remain in major bottlenecks due to separate indicators, timelines and reporting requirements under each convention. This results in heavy administrative burdens and inconsistent data across institutions. Dialogue participants highlighted the difficulty of aggregating diverse subnational indicators, unclear data ownership, and monitoring systems that rarely inform policy decisions.
Tools such as the Data Reporting Tool for Multilateral Environmental Agreements demonstrate how even partial harmonization increases efficiency, enables policy steer, and strengthens accountability. Countries are moving toward whole-of-government monitoring approaches that use shared taxonomies, unified analytical frameworks, and interoperable measurement, reporting and verification systems. Strengthening subnational data systems and adopting “collect-once-use-many-times” models were identified as essential steps. Ecosystem-based indicators – such as long-term monitoring of sea otters in the North Pacific – show how integrated metrics can track carbon, biodiversity recovery and resilience simultaneously.
A coherent way forward
It is not about creating new structures but aligning existing ones around shared priorities, the white paper found. Scaling this requires leadership, institutional cultures that reward collaboration, and data systems that enable interoperability and trust. If embedded into national planning, financing and monitoring systems, synergy can help countries do more with finite resources, deliver multiple benefits and strengthen the integrity of results.
