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The COMBO Project: Advancing Biodiversity Offsets in Uganda
Project Period: Jun 2022 - Dec 2025
Completed: March 31, 2026
Rationale for the COMBO Project
Rapid economic development across biodiversity-rich countries in Africa and Asia was causing significant, often unmitigated, losses to ecosystems and wildlife. The COMBO Project was launched to address the gap between development pressures and biodiversity conservation, recognising that without structured policy frameworks, development projects would continue to cause net biodiversity loss. The programme sought to mainstream biodiversity considerations into national development planning through the application of the mitigation hierarchy.
Objectives:
- Mainstream biodiversity conservation into national development policy and practice.
- Support progress toward national and global biodiversity targets (no net loss or net gain of biodiversity)
- Strengthen the institutional and technical capacity of governments, the private sector, and civil society to assess, monitor, and enforce biodiversity mitigation measures.
- Develop and implement biodiversity offset policies at the country level
Key Outcomes & Deliverables
COMBO Project operated in two phases, with its second phase (COMBO+) concluding in early 2026 after four and a half years of work across six countries. Key achievements include:
- Policy Development: Supported the creation and strengthening of national biodiversity offset regulations on Biodiversity Offsets.
- Institutional Capacity Building: Trained government officials, private sector actors, academia, NGOs, and financial institutions on mitigation hierarchy implementation.
- Private Sector Engagement: Facilitated collaboration between governments and companies to apply best practices in biodiversity impact mitigation.
- Knowledge Sharing: Produced technical briefs, resources, and hosted multi-stakeholder workshops across all focal countries.
- Legacy & Continuation: Laid the groundwork for country-specific follow-on programmes and contributed to the launch of the Compensatory.