The Fund
The Cali Fund is a global financial mechanism established under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to promote the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the commercial use of digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources. Adopted by 196 governments through Decision 16/2 at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in October–November 2024, the mechanism was officially launched in Rome on 25 February 2025.
Unlike traditional benefit-sharing approaches that rely primarily on bilateral agreements between users and providers of genetic resources, the Cali Fund establishes a multilateral approach, encouraging companies in sectors that benefit from DSI to contribute to a global fund. The resources are intended to support biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, while directing a significant share of funding to Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs), in line with Target 13 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
What is digital sequence information?
Digital sequence information (DSI) refers to data derived from the genetics of living organisms (plants, animals, microorganisms and more), typically stored in publicly accessible online databases such as GenBank and its partners in the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC). The three major international nucleotide sequence databases including the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), GenBank, and the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) collectively contain approximately 504.85 billion nucleotide sequences, representing around 69.66 trillion base pairs. There are more than 1,700 databases and repositories of biological data around the world. DSI is a cornerstone of modern biotechnology: companies in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, agriculture, AI-driven life sciences and other industries routinely use these databases to develop commercial products, from new medicines to drought-resistant crops.
DSI often originates from biodiversity-rich countries in the Global South, yet the financial benefits from its commercial use rarely flow back to those countries or to the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who are custodians of that biodiversity. The Cali Fund is designed to correct this imbalance.
Why a new mechanism was needed
For most of history, genetic resources were treated as the common heritage of humankind. Anyone could collect them, and no one had to pay. The Convention on Biological Diversity, signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, changed that. It established that countries have sovereign rights over the plants, animals and microbes within their borders. It also set a goal of sharing the benefits of their use fairly.
The detailed rules were established in the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing. It was adopted in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010 and came into force in 2014. However, the Nagoya Protocol built benefit-sharing around a physical transaction: a user gets access to a physical sample in exchange for prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms with the provider country.
Cheap sequencing broke that model. A genome can now be uploaded and downloaded anywhere and resynthesized without the original sample, its country of origin or the Protocol's consent process ever being involved. Critics call this "digital biopiracy"; research-heavy countries and industry counter that open, untraceable databases are the backbone of modern biology and public health.
The key idea agreed at COP15 in 2024 was to stop trying to trace each sequence back to its country of origin, which studies found impractical at scale. Instead, users of DSI pay into a collective fund, and the money is distributed according to agreed criteria.
How the negotiations got here
| Date | Event | Key Developments | Key document |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun, 1992 | Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro | The CBD was signed. It recognized countries' sovereign rights over their genetic resources and made fair benefit-sharing one of its three objectives. DSI was not yet an issue. | Convention text |
| Oct, 2010 / Oct, 2014 | COP10, Nagoya | The Nagoya Protocol was adopted in 2010 and came into force in 2014. It required prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms for access to physical genetic resources, but its scope did not include sequence data. | Nagoya Protocol |
| Dec, 2016 | COP13, Cancún | DSI was included in the CBD text as a placeholder term, with the decision noting that "terminology is subject to further discussion." A fact-finding and scoping study was proposed and a call for submissions and the first expert group (AHTEG) were commissioned. The Nagoya Protocol's parties joined the same process. | Decision XIII/16 |
| Feb, 2018 | AHTEG on DSI, Montreal | The first expert group reviewed the fact-finding study and case studies of DSI use in pharma, agriculture and synthetic biology however, the group could not agree on what DSI covers. | Meeting documents |
| Nov, 2018 | COP14, Sharm El-Sheikh | Parties formally acknowledged a "divergence of views" on benefit-sharing from DSI. They set up a science- and policy-based process with four peer-reviewed studies (on concept and scope, traceability, databases and domestic measures), an extended AHTEG, and a link to the post-2020 framework negotiations. | Decision 14/20 |
| Mar, 2020 | AHTEG on DSI (online) | The extended expert group reviewed the four studies and proposed ways to group types of DSI. | Meeting documents |
| Dec, 2022 | COP15, Montreal | Parties agreed to create a multilateral mechanism, including a global fund, that decouples access from benefit-sharing. It had to be "efficient, feasible and practical" and consistent with open access to data. A working group was tasked with designing it by COP16. The same COP adopted the Kunming-Montreal GBF, whose Target 13 covers benefit-sharing from DSI. | Decision 15/9 · GBF (Decision 15/4) |
| Nov, 2023 | WGDSI-1, Geneva | The new working group met in November 2023 and scoped the design questions: what triggers a payment, who contributes, who governs the fund and how money is disbursed. | Meeting report |
| Aug, 2024 | WGDSI-2, Montreal | The working group drafted rival models for contributions (a levy on profits or revenue, sector-based payments, a 1% retail levy, or voluntary incentives), disbursement and hosting. The resulting text was heavily bracketed. | Recommendation WGDSI-2/1 |
| Nov, 2024 | COP16, Cali | Parties operationalized the multilateral mechanism and created the Cali Fund, adopted on 1 November. The decision set indicative rates of 1% of profits or 0.1% of revenue, earmarked at least 50% of funds for IPLCs, and set up an expert group on allocation methodology. Final rates were left to COP17. | Decision 16/2 |
| Feb, 2025 | Resumed COP16, Rome | The Fund was formally launched on 25 February at FAO headquarters, where UNDP, UNEP and the CBD Secretariat signed a Memorandum of Understanding. | Launch announcement |
| Nov, 2025 | First contribution | The first contribution arrived: US$1,000 from UK start-up TierraViva AI. | Carbon Brief |
| 2026 | AHTEG on Allocation Methodology | The expert group proposed splitting half of the country pool equally among eligible countries and weighting the other half by biodiversity and need. It found no usable data yet for the geographic-origin criterion. | ICCA Consortium analysis |
| Oct, 2026 | COP17, Yerevan | Scheduled for 19–30 October to set final contribution rates and thresholds, adopt the allocation formula and agree how the mechanism will be reviewed. | COP17 documents |
Purpose
The Cali Fund directly supports the three objectives of the CBD:
- The conservation of biological diversity
- The sustainable use of its components
- The fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources
It also serves Target 13 of the KMGBF, which calls for a significant increase in monetary and non-monetary benefits shared from genetic resources, DSI and associated traditional knowledge by 2030.
Who contributes?
The Cali Fund is the first global biodiversity fund to rely on the private sector as its principal contributors. Under Decision 16/2, large companies that benefit commercially from DSI "should contribute" 1% of their profits or 0.1% of their revenue, whichever they choose. These are indicative rates; COP17 is mandated to set the final thresholds and rates.
The rates apply to companies meeting at least two of three thresholds, averaged over three years:
| Threshold | Value |
|---|---|
| Total assets | US$20 million |
| Sales | US$50 million |
| Profits | US$5 million |
The decision lists seven sectors that benefit directly or indirectly from DSI:
- Pharmaceuticals
- Nutraceuticals (food and health supplements)
- Cosmetics
- Animal and plant breeding
- Biotechnology
- Laboratory equipment associated with sequencing and use of DSI
- Information, scientific and technical services related to DSI, including AI
Academic institutions, public research bodies and non-commercial entities are exempt from monetary contributions. Contributions are currently voluntary: many Global South countries, led by the African Group, sought a legally binding levy, but this was not achieved at COP16.
What contributors get. Contributions are made directly to the Fund (or via a national authority) and a receipt is issued. For each year a company contributes in line with the modalities, it receives a certificate confirming it has shared monetary benefits "within the scope of the multilateral mechanism for that year." This is "without prejudice" to national ABS laws, which countries are invited to align with the mechanism.
How much could it raise? A June 2026 LSE Grantham Research Institute working paper identifies about 21,690 eligible companies across 100 CBD Parties. It estimates about US$3.6 billion a year under full compliance and about US$929 million a year under realistic voluntary uptake. Pharmaceuticals and AI/information services would each supply about a quarter of the full-compliance total, and the top 100 firms about 28%.
Structure and governance
The Cali Fund is a multi-partner trust fund. Its institutional arrangement was formalized in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed at the Rome launch:
- UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTFO): Administrative Agent. Receives, administers and disburses contributions, and consolidates financial reports.
- UNDP and UNEP: co-host the Fund with the MPTFO.
- CBD Secretariat (Montreal): hosts the Cali Fund Secretariat, which implements Steering Committee decisions and provides operational support.
Hosting by the MPTFO sidestepped a fight at the negotiations. Canada, Norway and Australia wanted the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as host, while India and Brazil opposed it.
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee provides strategic and programmatic oversight. It has 24 voting members plus 6 observers:
| Group | Seats | Status |
|---|---|---|
| CBD Parties (3 per UN region) | 15 | Voting |
| Indigenous Peoples and local communities (1 per sociocultural region) | 7 | Voting |
| UN organizations (UNEP/SCBD and UNDP) | 2 | Voting |
| Civil society, scientific institutions, private sector (2 each) | 6 | Observers |
The MPTFO also participates as Administrative Agent.
In 2025 the CBD Secretariat published the Cali Fund Guide for companies, with separate guides for Parties and for sequence databases. By June 2026 it was available in seven languages. The guides are described as preliminary, living documents rather than official legal interpretations.
Who receives the funds?
At least 50% of the Cali Fund's resources are allocated to Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs), in recognition of their role as custodians of biodiversity. This share responds to the self-identified needs of IPLCs, including women and youth, and can be channelled through government authorities or paid directly.
The remaining resources support:
- Developing country Parties to the CBD, to implement their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs)
- Scientific research on biodiversity and DSI capacity-building
- Bridging gaps in how countries generate, access, use, analyze and store DSI