Guyana will host more than 140 representatives of governments, communities and organisations at the second Global Biodiversity Alliance (GBA) Conference and Financing Forum on 30 and 31 October. The event takes place at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre in Georgetown.

The theme is "Investing in Nature: From Global Commitments to Practical Action". Sessions will cover blended finance, green and biodiversity bonds, carbon and biodiversity markets, and funding through multilateral institutions. The second day is the Financing Forum, which will examine investment mechanisms and the public policies needed to support them, with regional discussions and practical financing sessions.

The conference follows the inaugural GBA Summit, held in Georgetown from 23 to 25 July 2025. President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali launched the alliance at that event, and Guyana is the permanent home of its secretariat. Mr Ali told the summit that the world invests about US$200 billion a year in nature, against the at least US$700 billion needed to meet the targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework. The summit also introduced a Global Biodiversity Product and an index, which are intended to place a measurable economic value on biodiversity.

Mr Ali has said biodiversity should be treated as a product and a natural resource asset, so that it draws sustained investment in preserving ecosystems. On an earlier visit to London, he said he had discussed a market-based biodiversity model, designed to attract global financing, with King Charles III. The government links the initiative to its Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030 and its record in managing tropical forests, which it says lend the effort institutional credibility.

Participation in the alliance has widened. Mr Ali says it has support across the United Nations system, the United Kingdom, African nations and research institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean, and that India is expected to join. The United Kingdom joined earlier this year, according to the British High Commission in Georgetown. The British Chamber of Commerce Guyana has also agreed to fund the Iwokrama International Centre's work under the alliance for three years. The initiative draws in scientists and academic institutions, as well as industries whose operations affect biological diversity.

The conference coincides with the state visit of King Charles III, which is part of an autumn tour announced by Buckingham Palace. The tour begins in The Bahamas on 27 October, continues to Guyana, and ends in Antigua and Barbuda, where the King and Queen Camilla will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting from 1 to 4 November. The Guyana leg marks 60 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Trade between them rose from £587 million in 2020 to £1.64 billion in 2024, according to the Guyanese government.

The King has been patron of the Iwokrama International Centre since 2000, after he visited the Iwokrama forest as Prince of Wales. Reports on the visit say it will give him the chance to meet scientists, Indigenous community members and people working in conservation and restoration at the time of the conference.

The financing tools on the programme are largely untested at scale, and the process of turning a commitment into money is slow. Biodiversity credits and debt-for-nature swaps need agreed ways of measuring ecological value, buyers willing to pay for it, and legal arrangements that recognise the rights of the communities who live on the land. The 2025 summit promised pilot projects and a five-year roadmap. This month's forum is the first test of how many of those plans have moved from announcement to funding.

The details published so far name the mechanisms to be discussed and do not set a fundraising target for the two days. Guyana has not said what it expects the alliance's members to pledge. The conference will show whether the government's market-based model attracts investors who are prepared to commit capital, or whether it remains a framework for discussion among its existing supporters.

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