RAF Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the Resource Allocation Framework?
2. When does the implementation of the RAF begin?
3. What is the total amount of money that is available in GEF-4?
4. Will all resources available in GEF-4 be allocated under the RAF?
5. What is the amount that is available for biodiversity and climate change in GEF-4?
6. Which countries are eligible to receive GEF resources under the RAF?
7. Are all of the resources for biodiversity and climate change allocated to specific countries?
8. How much is allocated individually to specific countries and how much to the group?
9. How many countries received individual allocation and how many are in the group?
10. How are the allocations for an eligible country determined?
11. What is the greatest and least amount of money a country can expect from the GEF during the 4 years of GEF-4?
12. What determines whether a country receives an individual allocation or is a part of the group?
13. How long does a country have to utilize the initial allocations?
14. What happens to the initial allocations that are not used by the end of the first half of GEF-4?
15. What is the Mid-term Reallocation?
16. How can a country increase its allocations?
17. Can a country receive an individual allocation of be part of the group as a result of the mid term reallocation?
18. What allocations are available to a country during the second half of GEF-4?
19. Are allocations entitlements?
20. What can the allocated resources be used for?
21. Will the allocations be disclosed publicly?
22. Were there consultations with the eligible countries during the reallocation process?
23. Does the RAF change the GEF project cycle?
24. How does the RAF fit into each country’s development operational cycles?
25. How does the RAF affect a country’s ability to meet global environmental convention targets?
          

1. What is the RAF?  The Resource Allocation Framework (RAF) is a new system adopted by the GEF Council in September 2005 to allocate GEF resources to recipient countries based on global environmental priorities and country-level performance.  The RAF is designed to increase the predictability and transparency in the way GEF allocates resources by specifying a well-defined and publicly disclosed method for allocating resources to countries.  The RAF increases predictability by specifying, at the beginning of each four-year replenishment period, the resources each eligible country can expect from the GEF during that period, and how these initial allocations will be updated at the middle of the replenishment period.

2. When does the implementation of the RAF begin? The RAF began implementation with the start of the fourth replenishment period of the GEF (July 1, 2006).

3. What is the total amount of money that is available in GEF-4? Donors committed to provide $3.13 billion for the fourth replenishment of the GEF consisting of new donor commitments, payment on past arrears, investment income and the unused resources carried over from GEF-3.  The actual amount that will be available during GEF-4 may be higher or lower than these amounts and depends on a number of factors, including the actual receipt on pledges from donors, changes in the value of these payments arising from exchange rate fluctuations and the realized income on investments.  As part of the mid-term reallocation for the RAF, the Trustee has updated the estimates of resources expected to be available during GEF-4 as $3.3 billion. 

4. Will all resources available in GEF-4 be allocated under the RAF? In September 2005, the GEF Council decided (1) to use the RAF to allocate resources during GEF-4 for biodiversity and climate change projects only, and (2) to examine the feasibility of developing the indicators necessary for extending the RAF to the other focal areas during the mid-term review of the RAF in 2008. For this reason the initial implementation of the RAF is limited to biodiversity and climate change projects. All of the resources targeted for these two areas, during GEF-4 will be allocated based on the RAF. The distribution of resources targeted for different focal areas during each GEF replenishment period is agreed to during negotiations for the replenishment and agreed to by the GEF Council. GEF resources for international waters, land degradation, persistent organic pollutants, and ozone depletion will continue to be allocated using the existing systems. Resource allocations for the small grants program and cross-cutting capacity building activities are also exempted from the RAF.   

5. What is the amount that is available for biodiversity and climate change in GEF-4? The GEF-4 replenishment agreement requires that a third of the GEF-4 programmable resources be allocated to biodiversity and a third to climate change.  At the start of GEF-4 it was expected that about a third of the res $1,000 Million would be available for biodiversity and $1,000 million for climate change.  The mid-term reallocation for the RAF is based on revised expectations of GEF-4 resources from the Trustee.  The new targets for GEF-4 are $1,030 million for biodiversity and $1,030 million for climate change.  

6. Which countries are eligible to receive GEF resources under the RAF? Eligibility for GEF resources is defined in the GEF instrument and is separately determined for each focal area.  In all cases, a country has to be a party to the relevant international convention to be eligible for resources under a focal area.  In addition, a country has to be either eligible based on the guidance of the convention or be a developing country that is eligible to borrow from the World Bank or for technical assistance from UNDP.

7. Are all of the resources for biodiversity and climate change allocated to specific countries? No.  Five percent of the available resources in each focal area is set aside for global and regional projects and five percent in support of the small grants program and the LDC/SIDs programs.  The remaining 90% is allocated to countries or a group of countries.

8. How much is allocated individually to specific countries and how much to the group? At least 75% of the resources for each focal area are allocated to individual countries.  About 15% is allocated to the group. The group is a list of countries that do not have a country specific allocation under the RAF.  Instead all of the members of the group collectively access the resources allocated to the group.  To ensure equity among countries in the group, no country in the group can access more than the upper limit for countries in the group. The upper limits were initially set at $3.3 million for biodiversity and $3.1 million for climate change.  They were revised to $3.8 million for biodiversity and $3.3 million for climate change as part of the mid term reallocation.

9. How many countries received individual allocation and how many are in the group? At the start of GEF-4 57 countries received an individual allocation for biodiversity and 46 for climate change.There were 91 countries in the group for biodiversity and 115 countries in the group for climate change when the initial allocations for GEF-4 were made in 2006.

10. How are the allocations for an eligible country determined? The indicative allocations for an eligible country are based on a formula subject to adjustments for a minimum allocation and a ceiling. The formula combines two indexes -- the GEF Benefits Index and the GEF Performance Index -- to determine the share of resources that each country is allocated.  A country’s share increases with higher values of each index.  The GEF Benefits Index measures the potential of a country to generate global environmental benefits while the GEF Performance Index measures a country’s capacity, policies and practices relevant to successful implementation of GEF programs and projects.

11. What is the greatest and least amount of money a country can expect from the GEF during the 4 years of GEF-4? Each eligible country can expect to receive a minimum allocation of $1 million each for biodiversity and climate change.  Additional resources are available to each eligible country based on a formula.  The total amount that a country receives cannot exceed ceiling amounts of 15% of the resources available to the GEF for climate change and 10% of the resources available to the GEF for biodiversity.

12. What determines whether a country receives an individual allocation or is a part of the group? All eligible countries are ranked based on the allocation formula.  The highest ranked countries that account for at least 75% of the resources available in each focal area receive an individual allocation.  The remaining countries are in the group.  There is one exception.  If a country satisfies any of the following three conditions, it cannot receive an individual allocation and instead is automatically part of the group:  (a) the country is not a a participant in the GEF (b) the country has not received any funding in the focal area previously and (c) the GEF Performance Index data for the country is not available.  

13. How long does a country have to utilize the initial allocations? The initial indicative allocations are for the 4 year period encompassing all of GEF-4.  However, countries can only utilize 50% of the initial indicative allocation during the first half of GEF-4.   The fourth replenishment of the GEF is for the period July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2010.  The first half of GEF-4 ended on June 30, 2006 and the second half began on July 1, 2008. 

14. What happens to the inutilized initial allocations at the end of the first half of GEF-4? The initial indicative allocations are for the 4 year period encompassing all of GEF-4.  However, countries can only utilize 50% of the initial indicative allocation during the first half of GEF-4. A country that has utilized less than 50% of the initial allocation available during the first half of GEF-4 can carryover to the second half of GEF-4 any portion of the 50% of the initial allocation that it has not utilized.  The 50% of the initial allocations that are not available to countries during the first half of GEF-4 are reallocated to all eligible countries based on the RAF formula using updated indicators for GBI and GPI at the midpoint of the GEF-4 replenishment period.  The initial allocations will be changed only at the midpoint of GEF-4 based on the mid term reallocation.   

15. What is the Mid-term Reallocation? At the mid point of the replenishment period (after June 30, 2008), resources available for biodiversity and climate change will be reallocated to all eligible countries based on the RAF formula using updated data for the GEF Benefits Index and the GEF Performance Index.  The midterm reallocation revises the initial GEF-4 allocations of a country based on the RAF formula.  The revised GEF-4 allocation consists of 50% of the initial allocations and the revised 2nd half allocation based on the mid-term reallocation.  

16. How can a country increase its allocations? Adoption and implementation of policies and practices that lead to successful implementation of GEF projects is the quickest way to increase country allocations.  Country allocations will also increase over the medium to long term through increases in a country’s potential to generate environmental benefits.

17. Can a country receive an individual allocation of be part of the group as a result of the mid term reallocation? A country initially in the group that score higher on the RAF formula based on a combination of the updated GBI and GPI data relative to other countries can receive an individual allocation during the second half of GEF-4.  A country that has an individual allocation during the first half will continue to receive an individual allocation during the second half of GEF-4, but its allocations maybe lower if its country score is lower than other countries.  

18. What allocations are available to a country during the second half of GEF-4? A country has available to it during the second half of GEF-4, its revised allocations for GEF-4 less what it had utilized during the first half of GEF-4.  

19. Are allocations entitlements? Allocations are not entitlements.  Allocations that are not used revert back to the GEF trust fund at the end of each replenishment period.

20. What can the allocated resources be used for? The allocated resources can only be used to pay for the incremental costs incurred by countries in generating global environmental benefits in the respective focal areas.  These can occur in multi-focal or multi-country projects.  In addition, countries with an individual allocation can also use their allocations to support the Small Grants Program in their respective countries subject to limits. 

21. Will the allocations be disclosed publicly? Yes.  The initial indicative allocations for all eligible countries for GEF-4 were publicly disclosed in September 2006.  They can be found in the RAF public disclosure document:  English, French, Spanish. The initial allocations will be revised based on the formula after two years of RAF implementation.

22. Were there consultations with the eligible countries during the reallocation process? No.  The GEF Council decision on the RAF includes an explicit method to be used for reallocating resources at the mid-point of the replenishment period.  It entails collecting data from secondary sources including the World Bank, IUCN, CI, Birdlife, WWF, WRI, and Fishbase and applying the agreed methodology to these data to construct indicators needed to determine allocations.  Countries have been informed of their allocations as soon the allocations were determined. 

23. Does the RAF change the GEF project cycle? The RAF does not change the GEF project cycle.  The GEF has streamlined its project cycle as part of a larger set of policy and procedural reforms it has undertaken in 2006-2007 independent of the RAF.  All projects, whether under the RAF or outside, need to follow the new GEF project cycle. Each country needs to work with a GEF Implementing/Executing agency to develop and prepare concepts for review, pipeline entry and work program inclusion.  Knowing country allocations, however, enables each country to prioritize across projects.  In addition, the RAF should allow each country to better integrate GEF projects into their normal development operational cycle on the basis of the expected GEF resources.

24. How does the RAF fit into each country’s development operational cycles? Each country can better integrate GEF projects into their normal development operational cycle on the basis of the expected GEF resources.

25. How does the RAF affect a country’s ability to meet global environmental convention targets? Each country can choose how its allocations are spent to meet the various country level targets of the environmental conventions.  The RAF does not stipulate how a country will spend its allocations in a focal area as long as the supported project provides global environmental benefits.