Close to $1 billion approved for environment and climate action at GEF meetings

Governments have approved programmes and projects worth almost $1 billion to tackle growing threats to the natural world – and to help some of the Earth’s most vulnerable people adapt to climate change – at two consecutive Global Environment Facility (GEF) meetings in Washington DC.

They range from an ambitious $232 million integrated programme aimed at a “transformational shift in the agriculture and land use systems that are major drivers of environmental degradation around the world” to helping fishing people in Timor-Leste, improving the management of soils in Caribbean islands, and tackling the illegal world wildlife trade.

The 56th GEF Council meeting passed its biggest ever work program, totaling $865.9 million from its Trust Fund. It was then followed by a meeting of two smaller GEF funds – the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) and the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) – which approved work programs adding up to a further $101.57 million.

In remarks at the end of the meetings, Naoko Ishii, GEF CEO and Chairperson, said the new work programs pursue a new approach being pioneered by the GEF, and signify “a new way of doing business,” and, she added, “a new phase for GEF’s strategy and implementation.”

This approach lies at the heart of the GEF’s $4.1 billion seventh funding cycle, GEF-7, which started in June 2018. It is particularly exemplified in the new GEF Trust Fund work program – which will benefit 91 countries – by four new Impact Programs, which bring together governments and the private sector to work collaboratively on common environmental challenges to have direct effects at regional and global scales on ecology, economics and societies.

Besides the Impact Programs, another project will develop local economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America to provide alternative sources of income and thus counter the illegal wildlife trade which is having devastating effects on impacts on the populations of many species. Yet another will be the first global inter-agency program of its kind to focus primarily on increasing electric mobility in developing countries. And a third will work in 27 small island states (SIDS) around the globe to prevent the build-up of harmful chemicals in the environment and to manage and dispose of existing stockpiles of them.

At the second meeting of the week eleven projects were approved for the LDCF, which targets the needs of the world’s poorest nations in adapting to climate change. These ranged from promoting climate-resilient urban development in Pacific island nations to improving the availability of water in The Gambia, from strengthening the resilience of coastal communities in Togo to increasing the ability of fishing communities in Timor-Leste to adapt, be resilient and conserve biodiversity.

In all, these projects are expected to benefit 2.1 million people (half of them women), bring 608,509 hectares of land under climate-resilient management, provide 58,360 people with greater capacity to identify risks from the changing climate, and take measures to adapt, and affects 101 policies, plans and development frameworks.

Original source: GEF
Published on 14 June 2019