GEF Secretariat

The pressures on the global environment are relentless, outpacing efforts to counteract them. And the stakes could not be higher. The fight for the global environment is a fight for nature and people. People everywhere depend on the health and vibrancy of Earth systems. The sustainable development goals of countries cannot be achieved unless the resource base on which they depend is maintained.

Over a decade ago, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), in close partnership with the World Bank, invested in what has become a landmark project for Africa and the world—the Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI) in the Sahel. Today, with the involvement of a growing number of countries, international agencies, and local communities across the Sahel, life has started coming back to the land, bringing improved food security, jobs, and stability to people’s lives. There is an immense opportunity to build on this success by scaling-up investments for the GGWI.

The GEF provides financial resources for developing countries and countries with economies in transition to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The goal of the GEF’s biodiversity strategy is to maintain globally significant biodiversity in landscapes and seascapes. 

To achieve this goal, GEF-7 investments focus on three main objectives:

All life on Earth depends on clean air and water, biodiversity, and healthy forests, land, oceans and a stable climate. These global commons—the ecosystems, biomes and processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth system—are the very foundation of our global economy and modern society. Today, they are facing an all-too familiar tragedy of over-exploitation and rapid degradation.

The GEF is charged with eliminating the most harmful chemicals, which are covered by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

We are at a defining moment in time.

The recent IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C confirmed unequivocally that we are already seeing negative impacts of climate change: sea level rise and more extreme droughts and storms. The negative impacts often hit the poor and vulnerable the most—exactly those who have contributed the least to the problem in the first place.

The IPCC Report also illustrates that unfortunately we are not even close to being on track to limit warming to 1.5° C. Neither are we on track to deliver on the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.

The GEF supports adaptation to climate change in developing countries through the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), which supports urgent, medium and long-term adaptation needs in least developed countries (LDCF), and the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), accessible by all developing countries. Established in 2001 at COP 7, the two funds also support implementation of the Paris Agreement.