Multilateral environmental fund, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), has received initial pledges from donor countries totalling $3.9-billion during its ninth replenishment cycle. The world’s largest such fund, over the past 30 years the GEF has provided financing, mainly in the form of grants, totalling more than $27-billion, while also mobilising a further $155-billion for country-led priority projects.

“This replenishment sends a clear message: the world is not giving up on nature even in a time of competing priorities,” highlighted GEF chairperson and interim CEO Claude Gascon. “Our donor countries have risen to the challenge and made bold commitments towards a more positive future for the planet. The coming four years of the GEF-9 cycle will reflect this high-ambition push to achieve the 2030 environmental goals. I especially want to thank our donors for their endorsement of the multilateral environmental agreements as important vehicles of international cooperation when it comes to planetary health, and for their ambitious investment in the GEF as an organisation that plays a unique role bringing countries together and supporting lasting results.”

The GEF-9 cycle will run from July this year to June 2030. The facility covers six multilateral environmental agreements, namely the Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This upcoming cycle will have four primary themes. The Integration and Integrated Programmes theme will seek to move five critical areas (nature, food, urban energy, health) away from promoting degradation to integrating the value of nature into their production and consumption patterns, thereby safeguarding the planet and improving human wellbeing. The Blended Finance theme will expand the facility’s global blended finance programme, to make this approach mainstream within the GEF; the aim is to employ 25% of its resources to mobilise private investment. The theme Whole-of-Government and Whole-of-Society will encourage nature-positive governance, to end nature-negative effects, including by involving the private sector, civil society organisations, women and youth as planning and execution partners in GEF-funded programmes. The fourth theme is the provision of robust funding for the least developed countries and small island developing States, plus an increase in funding for indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs); the intent is to allocate 35% of its funding to these two categories of countries, and 20% to IPLCs.

“The environmental crises we face are accelerating,” affirmed GEF Council co-chair Richard Bontjer. “GEF-9 is a vote of confidence in an institution that has consistently delivered results at scale. This replenishment will sharpen the GEF’s focus on impact, drive greater efficiency, and mobilise private finance alongside public investment.”