Global Environment Facility (GEF); 8th Replenishment (2022 support)

General

The Global Environment Facility was established in October 1991 as a pilot program in the World Bank to assist in the protection of the global environment. In 1994, at the Rio Earth Summit, the GEF was restructured and moved out of the World Bank system to become a permanent, separate institution. As part of the restructuring, the GEF was entrusted to become the financial mechanism for both the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The GEF serves as a 'financial mechanism' to five 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), and Minamata Convention on Mercury. The GEF strives to achieve global environmental benefits by supporting developing countries in their efforts. GEF has organized its work around five focal areas ? biodiversity loss, chemicals and waste, climate change, international waters, and land degradation ? and take an integrated approach to support more sustainable food systems, forest management, and cities. The program architecture of GEF's eighth additional financing period is based on the 'healthy planet, healthy people' thinking. At the same time, the number of integrated programs was increased to eleven from four in the previous additional funding period. The GEF is a network organization. It is composed of independent secretariat and evaluation office, the World Bank acts as a trustee channelling project support to implementing entities such as to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Finland has supported the GEF from the very beginning. The support to the GEF was 26.9 million euros during the seventh cycle (2018-2022) and 48 million euros during this round.