The Center for Climate Strategies (CCS) provided technical assistance to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to further develop and deliver its cost and benefit assessment tool for Nature-Based Solutions (NbS). The revised and simplified UNDP NbS Tool is an Excel-based instrument designed to help policymakers and program managers assess the potential costs and benefits of specific NbS actions. It supports rapid, low-cost initial analysis of a broad range of impacts and actions while maintaining transparency and reliability.
The UNDP NbS Tool draws on three pilot case studies in Latin America and the Caribbean, El Salvador, Belize, and Ecuador. It incorporates default values from the pilot countries, ranging from economic data, such as GDP and sector and activity breakdowns, to climate risks and cost and benefit performance benchmarks for NbS technologies and practices. Users can select actions to address specific climate risks, add customized local data, or introduce new NbS actions. The tool assesses net costs using initial design parameters, such as the number of hectares and the timing of implementation.
As part of the completed technical assistance, CCS also mapped opportunities for future updates and expansions to the scope of assessment, methods, and tools, including integration of non-climate risks and climate mitigation actions, and expanded cost and benefit metrics. The delivered tool supports initial screening and prioritization of nature-based adaptation options within broader climate change adaptation planning. Potential future expansions could further support assessment of risk and vulnerability for specific populations, activities, and places, as well as the identification and design of enhanced adaptive capacities to close vulnerability gaps and provide co-benefits for health, livelihoods, equity, security, and sustainability.
