CEO Spells Out New Vision for Global Environment Facility -
Five Point Sustainability Compact to Increase Efficiency and Impact
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Washington, DC, 5 December 2006, -- In a major policy speech to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council meeting today, Monique Barbut, CEO and Chairperson of the GEF, outlined an exciting new vision for GEF, the world’s largest financier of 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.
The GEF invests nearly $1 billion in environmental protection projects every year. The 32-member Council is the governing body of the GEF. In August 2006, 32 nations pledged $3.13 billion for the GEF trust fund to finance environmental protection activities for the next four years making it the largest replenishment in the Facility’s history.
Highlights of the Five Point Sustainability Compact
Strategy: Shifting from a project-driven to programmatic approach, including focusing the strategies on a clear set of priority issues for the global environment, building synergies, and applying a set of tracking tools and measurable indicators of global outcomes and impacts for all GEF projects
Innovation: Using GEF funds as “seed money” for financing innovative and entrepreneurial efforts and technologies that lack a market base, allowing markets to develop technologies for wider use
Equity: Leveling the global playing field, helping vulnerable countries get concrete results from the use of limited resources and finding ways to ensure that today’s beneficiaries increasingly have the opportunity to make financial contributions to the GEF
Access: Appointing an “Ombudsman” in the GEF Secretariat to respond to country concerns or complaints; enhancing the effectiveness of GEF corporate programs such as Small Grants Program, National Dialogue Initiative, and Country Support Program and strengthening GEF’s corporate image and public communications
Focus: Introduce a redesigned project cycle where a proposal takes, on average, no more than 22 months from identification to start of implementation, compared to 66 months currently
Acknowledging that transforming the GEF will not be easy, Ms. Barbut said: All these actions will require discipline from all actors in the GEF – implementing and executing agencies, the Secretariat, Council, and Governments – but also a joint sense of ownership and commitment to this collective project.
Full text of CEO's speech English, French