GEF Partners

As one of the early pioneers working with indigenous peoples, the experience of the Small Grants Programme (SGP), funded mainly by the Global Environment Facility and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has been repeatedly recognized as one of the “primary modalities of engagement” (IEO 2017) for indigenous peoples with the GEF.

During year three, the GEF-funded Good Growth Partnership released new and strengthened existing online resources and innovative tools, providing an opportunity to learn from best practices elsewhere.

This report shares how COVID-19 has impacted the four Good Growth Partnership countries and supply chains, but also the positive outcomes that the integrated approach has enabled and how it contributes to strengthen supply chain sustainability and help countries recover.

The 2019 Year in Review for The Restoration Initiative (TRI) details progress and stories from the first year of its implementation. With support from the GEF, this pathbreaking program led by the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN) in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is supporting ten Asian and African countries in achieving shared restoration goals.

Over the past two years, the Resilient Food Systems (RFS) program, one of the three Integrated Approach Pilots funded by the GEF, has been committed to fostering sustainability and resilience for food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Amazon Sustainable Landscapes Program (ASL) is an initiative funded by the GEF to protect globally significant biodiversity and implement policies to foster sustainable land use and restoration of native vegetation cover.

Three countries participate in the program—Brazil, Colombia and Peru—together covering more than 75% of the Amazon territory. The program was approved by the GEF Council in October 2015 as an Integrated Approach Pilot with incentives for an integrated regional approach under the Sustainable Forest Management Strategy.

The planetGOLD program works in partnership with governments, the private sector, and artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) communities in nine countries to significantly improve the production practices and work environment of artisanal and small-scale miners. By working to close the financing gap, supporting formalization, and connecting mining communities with mercury-free technology and formal markets, the program aims to demonstrate a pathway to cleaner and more efficient small-scale gold mining practices that benefit everyone, from mine to market.

Since its inception in 2017, the Good Growth Partnership has brought together a growing coalition of committed changemakers to achieve greater results throughout its focal commodity supply chains and landscapes. This alliance has enabled efficiency, avoided overlap and allowed each partner to work to their strengths while simultaneously connecting the dots and layers that influence sustainability throughout the entire supply chain.

As vital to our existence as air or water, land is one of our greatest shared assets – and degradation of that land one our most pressing common challenges. Unchecked degradation threatens not only human wellbeing but that of the entire planet, contributing to accelerating climate change and loss of biodiversity. Today, with a quarter of our land already degraded and almost half the global population directly affected by land degradation, we are losing this precious resource at a time when we can least afford the social, economic or environmental impacts of this loss.

This publication captures the GEF Small Grant Programme's (SGP) experiences and lessons learned on plastics management, spanning not only the area of chemical and waste management, but also international waters and biodiversity conservation. The projects focus on implementing a circular economy either through recycling, reducing and reusing plastics for new products, influencing consumer use and behavior, or developing better waste collection and management practices at the community level.