The sixth Assembly of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) convened for its last day on Thursday, 28 June 2018, in Da Nang, Viet Nam.

In the morning, participants convened in seven parallel roundtable discussions on: sustainable forest management; preventing a toxic legacy: transforming the chemicals industry; wildlife; gender and the environment; innovation in clean energy; conservation finance; and sustainable drylands.

In the afternoon, an interactive panel discussion moderated by Jan Piotrowski, Environment Correspondent, The Economist, reported back from the high-level roundtable dialogues. On ways to deliver transformational change to safeguard the global commons, panelists suggested, inter alia: communicating effectively; delivering quantified data on environmental externalities to enable better investment decisions by governments; and creating a diverse platform with actors from different stakeholder groups that empowers these to push forward transformations.

Participants then heard a keynote address from the President of Guyana David Granger, in which he called for enhanced financial and technical assistance, and capacity building as part of a grand global transformative agenda to address environmental challenges.

In a message from civil society, Priscilla Achakpa, Women Environmental Programme, Nigeria, highlighted recommendations to the GEF Secretariat and the wider Partnership from 538 CSOs in the wider GEF-CSO network, including on the need to recognize that partnerships between the GEF and the civil society are key to achieve transformational change.

The Assembly took note of the:

    Report on the GEF-7 Replenishment;

    Sixth Overall Performance Study of the GEF; and

    Report of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel.

The Report on the GEF-7 Replenishment included a summary of negotiations, programming directions and resource allocation, and policy recommendations for GEF-7, along with a draft GEF-7 replenishment resolution for approval by the World Bank Executive Directors.

Expressing gratitude to the Government of Viet Nam, the city of Da Nang, the GEF Secretariat, volunteers and participants for their contributions to the Assembly, GEF CEO and Chairperson Naoko Ishii reiterated her belief that the GEF can play an extremely useful role in catalyzing the change needed to address environmental challenges.

GEF Assembly Chair Trần Hồng Hà, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Viet Nam, noted that he had been inspired by the Assembly’s commitment to addressing the pressing issues related to marine plastics, biodiversity loss, and the blue economy, and closed the meeting at 4:33 pm.

Read more...