‘Developed nations are not honoring their commitments’: DRC negotiator on biodiversity finance

Yerevan, Armenia witnessed heated and prolonged discussions during the concluding session of the 2026 U.N. biodiversity summit (COP17). The primary cause of the prolonged debates revolved around the pressing issue of biodiversity finance. The situation echoed earlier confrontations from four years ago at the COP15 summit in Montreal, where a party threatened to withdraw at the eleventh hour due to disagreements on financial matters.

Among the factions at the heart of these disagreements was the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country that is the custodian of the second-largest rainforest globally, the Congo Basin. The DRC has been a vocal proponent for intensified and "more effective" finance to assist industrially developing nations in achieving global biodiversity objectives.

One of the key figures in these discussions for the DRC has been Daniel Mukubi, a representative who frequently articulates the nation's stance at international environmental forums.

According to Mukubi, as reported by Mongabay in an exclusive interview, "All this weight … the objectives, targets of the global biodiversity framework … It requires additional efforts for developing countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to be able to find alternatives." He further emphasized, "Additional means to enable Indigenous peoples and local communities that depend on forests and ecosystems, but also on forest products for their livelihoods, to be able to find means of subsistence that will allow them not to continue destroying the forest."