Legal Amazon Biome and Amazon Fund: Economic-Financial Sustainability and Socio-Environmental Responsibility of Civil Society Organizations

This research evaluates the economic-financial sustainability and adherence to compliance and accountability practices in civil society organizations (CSOs) with projects in the “Legal Amazon Biome”, supported with resources from the Amazon Fund, in the protection of environmental thematic areas. The object of each project is social and environmental responsibility and the primary data submitted for evaluation are recovered from the financial statements of the CSOs in the time horizon from 2015 to 2017. The Fund manager is the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (NBESD) and the governance , until then exercised by the Guiding Committee of the Amazon Fund (CAF) and Technical Committee of the Amazon Fund (TCAF), was discontinued in 2019, unilaterally by the Government of Brazil, resulting in an increase in the environmental degradation of the Biome by around 30% in 2019, compared to the previous year, in addition to the interruption of contributions from donors and support for projects. The research results, using positivist methodology, provide evidence that adherence to compliance and accountability practices is partial, contributing to fund management and to the literature in subsequent investigations, but CSOs are not self-sustainable and the available information does not allow evaluate the fulfillment of the object and of the UN's ESG agenda.