An independent financial organization, the GEF provides grants to developing countries and countries with economies in transition for projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants. These projects benefit the global environment, linking local, national, and global environmental challenges and promoting sustainable livelihoods.
Established in 1991, the GEF is today the largest funder of projects to improve the global environment. The GEF has allocated $8.8 billion, supplemented by more than $38.7 billion in cofinancing, for more than 2,400 projects in more than 165 developing countries and countries with economies in transition. Through its Small Grants Programme (SGP), the GEF has also made more than 10,000 small grants directly to nongovernmental and community organizations.
The GEF partnership includes 10 agencies: the UN Development Programme; the UN Environment Programme; the World Bank; the UN Food and Agriculture Organization; the UN Industrial Development Organization; the African Development Bank; the Asian Development Bank; the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; the Inter-American Development Bank; and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel provides technical and scientific advice on the GEF’s policies and projects. The GEF also serves as financial mechanism for the following conventions:
- Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
- Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
- UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
- The GEF, although not linked formally to the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer (MP), supports implementation of the Protocol in countries with economies in transition.
The Great Green Wall project was conceived five years ago as a method to fight desertification, the process of deterioration of land that equates to the literal spreading of the Sahara desert in Northern Africa. Desertification undermines agricultural production, thereby making food scarce and leaving families at risk for hunger and trapped in poverty. The project would use drought-adapted, native species of trees to slow or halt desertification by helping rain water filter into the ground and slowing winds that cause such rapid soil erosion. The African Union adopted the project in 2007 as part of a strategy to combat desertification, and has since been looking for international funding to build the Great Green Wall. The Global Environmental Facility announced on June 17 at a Summit in Chad that they would fund the Great Green Wall, which is expected to cost $119 million. The wall of trees will stretch 4,400 miles, from Senegal to Djibouti, and will be nine miles wide. This step comes as part of a collaboration between the GEF and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification to reverse the damaging effects of the phenomenon worldwide.
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