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April 2007
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I. Monique Barbut
Dear Colleague: It is a pleasure to continue our conversation through this edition of Talking Points.
Since the last edition of Talking Points, the GEF Council met in December in Washington, DC. As you may remember, at the Council meeting I pledged to revitalize the GEF and presented my vision for the GEF—a vision which I believe looks out beyond the immediate horizon toward the long-term future.
II. From December 5-8, 2006, the GEF Council held its last meeting of the year in Washington, DC. The meeting agenda and a full summary of the Council Meeting are available on the GEF website at: http://thegef.org/documents/council_documents/council_documents.html. The following are highlights of the meeting. III.
Every year one to three million people around the world die from malaria. Malaria is a transboundary problem affecting most tropical countries. In Mesoamerica, over 89 million people live in areas environmentally suitable to the transmission of malaria, of which 35 percent are highly endemic areas. Only an integrated regional approach can address the human and environmental challenges in malaria prone areas. b. Sustainable Coffee Harnesses Consumer Power for Conservation (UNDP) Coffee is the world’s largest commodity market, and after petroleum, the second largest globally traded commodity. A GEF-UNDP project aims to transform the way in which coffee companies obtain their supplies and in doing so, conserve vital biodiversity. It seeks to tap into the enormous power of the environmentally and ethically aware consumer to promote biodiversity-friendly and sustainable coffee farming in South American countries. Children in southern Africa are playing the Limpopo board game, literally for their lives. Piloted in such places as Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland and Mozambique’s Gaza Province, the game uses the power of play to teach ways of reducing vulnerability to flooding. The game—part of a larger GEF project launched after the devastating Limpopo floods in 2000—underlines the challenges developing countries face as they try to adapt to the extreme weather events linked to climate change IV. News from the GEF Evaluation Office The GEF cycle needs to be more efficient, effective, and cost-effective, according to a new evaluation report by the GEF Evaluation Office. The evaluation draws from extensive research: 17 country visits and almost 700 responses to an electronic survey, along with input from the evaluations offices of the GEF’s Implementing and Executing Agencies. V.Subregional Exchange Workshops The GEF Country Support Programme (CSP) is organizing its first annual series of Subregional Exchange Workshops for GEF Focal Points in 2007. The CSP is designing the workshops to provide a platform for fostering dialogue on environmental and sustainable development concerns, as a response to focal point priorities based on a survey conducted in November 2006 and feedback received during subregional consultations. Around 2 billion people live in areas threatened by desertification. To deal with the growing concern, about 200 experts from 25 countries convened in Algiers on December 17-19, 2006 for a United Nations University (UNU) conference to consider the types of changes policy makers would have to make to cope with the causes and consequences of desertification.
“We have to put an end to too-slow response to global environmental concerns complicated by long delays in disbursing funds, long lists of sometimes-questionable projects in an unaccountable pipeline, complex structures, arcane requirements, and supply-driven portfolios,” stated Monique Barbut, GEF Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson at the GEF-NGO Consultation and Council Meeting, held in Washington, DC, December 4–8, 2006.
Vlll. New Focal Points and Council Members
Meet David Reed and Michelle Lapinski
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