TheGEF : Supporting innovation for transformation: GEF’s new Impact Programs to tackle the drivers of environmental degradation in an integrated way 

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) faces a demanding yet seemingly attainable task: to help countries foster a transformation in how individuals, communities, and businesses use and protect the natural word. But nothing less will suffice if we are to meet pressing environmental challenges and safeguard the global commons.

Since its inception the GEF has organized its efforts within several largely independent focal areas, including biodiversity, climate change mitigation, and sustainable land management.  But it has become increasingly clear that not only are those challenges closely intertwined, they are also linked in numerous and complex ways to questions of economics, governance, health, equity, and many others.

While some problems can be best addressed with a relatively narrow focus — for example, improving protected area management and infrastructure to ensure the conservation of biodiversity and other natural assets — many others cannot. We have no realistic hope of improving the lives of people, especially those who are poor and often hence most directly dependent on natural resources, unless we consider how ecological factors shape their health, access to energy, and the availability of productive land.

Systemic solutions are needed, as isolated sectoral interventions can be annulled by what is happening in other sectors.  For example, we know that food production will have to increase to meet growing demands of larger and progressively wealthier population. But if we focus solely on this objective, in the long haul the problem will worsen through the depletion of soils, wasteful management of water, loss pollinators, and increase desertification and deforestation.

Hence, there is no other way than to integrate both our thinking and how projects and programs we finance get designed, with the added benefit of generating multiple global environmental benefits across all focal areas.

The original GEF2020 strategy argued that achieving the objectives of multilateral environmental agreements would have to require that GEF support to country priorities be aimed at tackling the drivers of environmental degradation – and not just the symptoms - in an integrated fashion.  For this reason, the focal area strategies for the Seventh Replenishment Cycle (GEF-7) have created opportunities for countries to participate in Impact Programs and other programmatic approaches. Of relevance are the Impact Programs on Food Systems, Land Use, and Restoration (FOLUR); Sustainable Cities; and Sustainable Forest Management. These three Impact Programs collectively address key drivers of environmental degradation and offer the potential for the GEF to contribute to systemic change.

The Impact Programs are designed to help countries pursue holistic approaches to transformational change in these key systems. The Impact Programs will also allow enable countries to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including the private sector, enhance knowledge sharing and learning, and ensure a more effective use of GEF resources.

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