Chimgan mountains, Uzbekistan. Photo credit: Laura_Uhryn/iStock
The governing body of the Global Environment Facility trust fund has approved $144.3 million in the final disbursement of its eighth funding period and welcomed donor country contributions to finance action over the next four years, aligned with the final sprint towards 2030 international environmental goals.
Meeting in Samarkand, the 71st GEF Council endorsed a 16-project work program that will fund large-scale efforts to protect ocean ecosystems through the Blue Nature Alliance, support civil society efforts to conserve biodiversity with the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, restore the health of landscapes and coasts worldwide, and boost investment in nature-positive activity.
The newly funded projects include efforts to safeguard flyways for migratory birds from East Asia to Australia; improve water management across Central Asia; reduce human-wildlife conflict in Botswana; bolster ecosystems’ resilience to fire in India; and support renewable power generation and storage in Uzbekistan through blended finance.
The trust fund work program is set to mobilize more than $828 million, with each GEF dollar matched with $6.40 in co-financing. In addition to the work program, the Council received and acknowledged nearly $200 million in smaller-sized projects that have moved forward with GEF Interim CEO approval since the beginning of the year, which have generated $899 million in co-financing.
With these efforts, the GEF will meet or exceed core impact indicators for the GEF-8 period on marine protected area protection and creation, improved management of shared water ecosystems, restoration of land and terrestrial ecosystems, greenhouse gas mitigation, and other areas including pollution management and abatement in the current four-year cycle.
This was the final work program of the GEF-8 period, which ends in June 2026. With this funding, plus support for enabling activities supporting countries’ planning and policy work, about 97 percent of the record $5.3 billion GEF-8 envelope will be allocated for global environmental efforts across the GEF’s 144 recipient countries.
GEF-8 programming is expected to result in the creation or improvement of more than 1.9 billion hectares of marine protected areas, the creation of over 100 million hectares of terrestrial protected areas, and the restoration of over 10 million hectares of degraded land. GEF-funded initiatives will also mitigate over 2.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and reduce more than 260,000 metric tons of dangerous chemicals and waste, including persistent organic pollutants and mercury.
The 11 Integrated Programs launched in GEF-8 have fully invested the $1.65 billion allocated to their efforts targeting the drivers of environmental degradation, rather than their symptoms. This has included innovative efforts to build and strengthen nature-positive, carbon-neutral, and pollution-free activities across areas including food systems, wildlife conservation, and sustainable cities.
Other highlights of the July 2022 through June 2026 period include:
- a global program supporting the expansion of electric mobility systems, including attention to end-of-life vehicles and batteries and circularity across the value chain;
- support for restoration of degraded land and creation of green jobs across the Sahel;
- Central Asia Water-Land Nexus project improving water security, resilience, and rural livelihoods in the Amu Darya and Syr Darya river basins, vital to agriculture and energy;
- a financing partnership facility catalyzing investment in waste reduction across Asia’s electronics, textiles, cement, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing sectors;
- efforts to eliminate mercury use in non-ferrous metals such as copper and aluminum, where demand is surging with electric vehicles and renewables;
- enabling activities for countries to support ratification readiness for the BBNJ Agreement;
- a self-sustaining financing mechanism governed by Angola, Botswana, and Namibia to secure water, biodiversity, and ecosystem services in the Cubango-Okavango River Basin;
- outcome-based conservation bonds that will support the protection of biodiversity hotspots and endangered species such as lemurs, rhinos and chimpanzee, in Madagascar, South Africa, and Rwanda, as well as vast marine ecosystems in Indonesian waters that are part of the Coral Triangle, the world’s epicenter of marine biodiversity.
On its opening day, the Council also welcomed the conclusion of the GEF-9 replenishment process, with an initial envelope of $3.9 billion in donor country contributions for the July 2026 to June 2030 period, when a burst of environmental action is set to occur.
“The GEF-9 replenishment process has shown what becomes possible when we choose cooperation and collaboration—when we come together to act not just for our own countries, but for our shared planet,” said Interim GEF CEO Claude Gascon. “The GEF-9 replenishment process has shown what becomes possible when we choose cooperation and collaboration.”
Aziz Abdukhakimov, Advisor to the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, welcomed Council members to Samarkand and stressed the importance of GEF integrated solutions for his country and region, citing years of support to protect biodiversity, including the iconic snow leopard, and to restore landscapes and bolster water and land management across Central Asia.
“I am honored to announce Uzbekistan's intention to become one of the first countries in Central Asia to contribute to the GEF-9 replenishment. This decision reflects our commitment to shared responsibility and our belief that countries should not only benefit from international cooperation but also contribute to it,” Abdukhakimov said.
Announcing a new public-private partnership, the Rob Walton Foundation said it would provide up to $50 million to support the conservation of Africa’s keystone protected areas in countries that dedicate their GEF funding to the protection of these 162 critical ecosystems for wildlife and people across the African continent.
The Council meetings preceded the Eighth GEF Assembly in Uzbekistan, which will include a series of high-level plenary meetings, roundtables, and side events focused on the final sprint to 2030 environmental goals. The Assembly is the flagship gathering of the GEF partnership, occurring approximately every four years and bringing together government officials, policymakers, civil society, and the private sector.
The six multilateral environmental conventions the GEF serves are the Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.