Nyungwe forest in Uganda. Photo credit: Leo Viktorov/Adobe Stock
This week, governments, experts, and members of forest communities are gathering in Rome for the 28th session of the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO28), timed with World Forest Week 2026 whose theme is “forests for food, resilience and prosperity.” For those of us working to support forest projects at the Global Environment Facility (GEF), these words carry a special resonance. They describe crucial co-benefits that GEF investments have been delivering for decades, beyond the environmental results we are expected to deliver.
As financial mechanism of several global multilateral environmental agreements, the GEF’s core mandate is to invest in the planet in five areas: biodiversity, climate change, land degradation, international waters, and chemicals and waste. Forests sit at the heart of that mission. But the GEF forest portfolio also reflects something that communities living in and around forests have always known. When we protect forests, we are also protecting people's lives, today and for generations to come.
Since 1991, the GEF has provided about $6 billion in grants to forest and landscape protection and restoration projects, mobilizing another $31 billion in co-financing from governments, development banks, the private sector, and other partners. It is the largest sustained multilateral grant investment in forest conservation in history.
As an organization, we normally speak in terms of global environmental results: hectares protected or restored, tons of emissions avoided or pollutants properly disposed of. Increased harvests, jobs, clean water supplies, and disaster protection don’t always get discussed when it comes to forest work. But an analysis of the GEF forest portfolio shows that such co-benefits are real and ever-present.
Around 1.6 billion people depend on forests for food, medicine, income, and cultural identity. Forest-grown foods enrich diets and act as a safety net when harvests fail. At the same time, forests regulate the rainfall, soils, and pollinators that nearby farms rely on.
In the Congo Basin, home to an estimated 65 to 80 million forest-dependent people, GEF-supported projects help communities develop forest products as a source of both nutrition and income. In the Amazon, the Amazon Food Atlas, launched in July 2026 under the GEF-supported Amazon Sustainable Landscapes Program, documents the food traditions of 14 Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local communities across seven countries. Its lesson is clear: food systems are richest where forests remain intact.
At the same time, through the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration Impact Program (FOLUR), active in 27 countries, the GEF is helping producers grow high value agricultural commodities crops while protecting forests. Cocoa, coffee, and palm oil are amongst the major targets for such deforestation-free initiatives, involving major producer countries including Brazil and Paraguay in Latin America, Indonesia in Southeast Asia, and Liberia and Ethiopia in Africa.
In important ways, forests are natural infrastructure. They store and release water, hold soils in place, and shield communities worldwide from floods, landslides, and drought.
The Amazon generates roughly 20 percent of its own rainfall, moisture that travels on to water farmland across South America. Forest products can account for 20 to 40 percent of household income for forest-dependent communities. In Colombia, the Life Amazon project supports jobs in community forest management, sustainable tourism, and environmental monitoring. In Peru, bio-businesses in Madre de Dios turn wild fruits, nuts, and fish into sustainable income. In Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve, community forest enterprises are generating lasting revenue while keeping biodiversity intact.
In Rwanda, a GEF project is restoring the forest corridor around Nyungwe National Park, one of Africa's best-preserved mountain rainforests and a water tower feeding major rivers and national hydropower. Partners have committed around $303 million in co-financing, some $30 for every GEF dollar, a strong signal of how much forest water is valued. In Nepal, forest restoration is reducing the risk of landslides, floods, and droughts for mountain communities, while in the Solomon Islands healthy upland forests help safeguard coastal communities downstream.
An analysis from the GEF Independent Evaluation Office found that in Uganda, the presence of an initiative to promote sustainable forest management can result in approximately $310 additional household assets compared to areas without similar efforts underway. One thing is clear throughout: positive results are strongest and most durable when Indigenous Peoples and local communities have secure rights, a real voice in decisions, and a partner role.
Our planet faces converging crises: biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation, pollution, hunger, and more. In this context, every effort to address environmental damage must deliver on several fronts at once. What we know from the years of working to protect and restore forests is that this is an avenue to make lasting differences well beyond the scope that is frequently described.
