The Global Environment Facility has published its project data on the platform of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), reflecting the multilateral trust fund’s commitment to making its grant and blended finance support easier to track and understand through timely information disclosure.
Transparency is a top priority for the GEF, which over the past three decades has provided more than $21.5 billion for environmental projects and programs in developing countries and mobilized another $117 billion in co-financing.
Since the launch of its Policy on Access to Information in 2018, the GEF has strengthened its information disclosure to make it easier for partners, stakeholders, and researchers to remain up to date about the grant and blended finance support it provides.
The GEF first published project data on the IATI registry in 2019. Since then, it has continued to ramp up efforts to be a more open institution. It now makes available detailed information and documents about GEF-financed projects on its project database, the GEF Portal. Stronger systems have provided the foundation to release data on the IATI registry in an automated way, directly extracting and exporting data from the Portal.
“Transparency is a cornerstone of our work. Reporting to IATI across our full portfolio is the result of three years of hard work in strengthening our systems,” said GEF Strategy and Operations Director Françoise Clottes. “This is an important stepping stone in our journey toward more transparency and accountability in delivering on global environment goals.”
The dissemination of high quality, timely project data allows the GEF to work across its 18 implementing agencies in a coordinated, efficient way, resulting in better-informed decision-making processes.
Transparency in aid reporting is also critically important for the GEF’s 184 member countries, who are working to support and advance environmental initiatives with global benefits. By accessing IATI-standard data, partners and stakeholders have the ability to review data from the GEF Secretariat in one place and to import consistent, accurate data on GEF-financed projects into their financial management systems.
In this first mass publishing of project data, the GEF has released project information following the IATI data standard — a consistent format and framework for reporting on development cooperation activities.
The IATI brings together governments, multilateral institutions, private sector and civil society organizations and others to increase the transparency and openness of resources flowing into developing countries. Its rules are designed to ensure information is easy to access, understand, and use.
There is a high level of detail in the project files, with data on regions, focal areas, and disbursement. In the future, the GEF will continue to enhance its IATI data publishing to also include progress in achieving results, the location of project sites, and more detailed project documents.
