Statement by CEO Monique Barbut on World Water Day 2007

Winning the Water Wars? New Models for Post-Conflict Cooperation on Water

WASHINGTON, DC, March 22, 2007

On World Water Day 2007, we stand face-to-face with the frightening specter of increasingly scarce and poor-quality water around the globe. In the public glare of this urgent problem, there are success stories which identify real solutions. They deserve to be aired and understood.

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Tackling Climate Change Now:

GEF Project in India’s Karnataka State Shows How

WASHINGTON, DC, January 30, 2007

The just-concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland may well have succeeded in casting the spotlight on climate change, but practical solutions are already being developed.  Monique Barbut, GEF CEO saw a pioneering project during a recent visit to Koratgere village, a two-hour drive from teeming Bangalore city, deep in the heart of Karnataka state dubbed India’s Silicon valley.

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Special Climate Change Fund Finances Adaptation Projects

WASHINGTON, DC, December 18, 2006. Poor communities in flood-prone Guyana and drought-stricken Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe will soon have a better chance at fighting the impacts of climate change, thanks to two innovative, multi-million dollar projects financed by the Global Environment Facility’s Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF).

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21 New Countries Added to the GEF Small Grants Programme

WASHINGTON, DC, December 12, 2006. A newly formed Steering Committee of the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP), comprising the GEF Secretariat, Implementing Agencies and Executing Agencies, held its first meeting on December 11, 2006.  A major outcome of the meeting, to be conveyed to all countries and GEF operational and political focal points by the end of this week, was the announcement that 21 new countries who applied are eligible for grant funding from the SGP.

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CEO Spells Out New Vision for GEF in Five Point Sustainability Compact

WASHINGTON, DC, December 5, 2006. In a major policy speech to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council meeting today, Monique Barbut, GEF CEO and Chairperson, outlined an exciting new vision for GEF, the world’s largest financier of global environmental protection projects. “I want to break apart the complex web of bureaucracy, which today defines the GEF and put in place a five-point Sustainability Compact so that the GEF can be counted on as a leading force for sustainable development for all people,” she said.

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"Environment is the Main Issue of the 21st Century"

- GEF CEO and Chairperson

MONTREAL, CANADA, November 30, 2006. Monique Barbut, GEF CEO and Chairperson, delivered a hard-hitting speech to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations today. Addressing an influential audience of policymakers, environmentalists, and development practitioners, she noted that protecting the earth's natural resource base requires urgent actions, including embedding environmental issues into economic development, unleashing the power of markets, and igniting the talents of policymakers to become champions of sustainability.

Read Ms. Barbut’s Statement English, French

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