GEF announces winners of first Innovation Window funds

The Global Environment Facility has selected seven projects as winners of its first Innovation Window, which will provide $12.3 million in grants to initiatives that test and pilot new solutions to stubborn challenges, from improving food systems to protecting wild cat habitats.

The Innovation Window program was launched as part of the GEF’s eighth funding cycle, to support and help road-test novel approaches, tools, and business models for complex problems related to biodiversity, climate change, pollution, and inter-related areas, engaging new and varied partners.

“The Innovation Window is a new and unique opportunity for the GEF to support highly innovative ideas together with partners from the private sector, civil society, academia, and leading research institutions,” said Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, CEO and Chairperson of the GEF. “We are looking forward to boosting technologies, policies, and business models that can enhance the impact of the GEF’s funding to deliver global environmental benefits at scale and support a systems change towards societies and economies that are nature-positive, low-carbon, and pollution-free.”

The winning projects were chosen from an initial pool of 128 applications and cover a wide range of issues in finance, behavior change, systems transformation, technology, and tools.

Winners include a project that seeks to accelerate collaborative and adaptive approaches to address complex environmental challenges, focusing on the link between food, biodiversity, and climate. Another winning project will develop a comprehensive guidance on finance for nature-positive, with a framework to be used by investors, banks, and insurers.

Five of the projects are global in their reach, one focuses on Latin America and one on Africa. The Africa project will pioneer innovative approaches to food systems transformation. The Latin America project will help protect jaguar conservation along a vast stretch of land – known as the Jaguar Corridor – through a satellite and automated cloud-based monitoring and assessment system.

About the Global Environment Facility
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a multilateral family of funds dedicated to confronting biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution, and supporting land and ocean health. Its financing enables developing countries to address complex challenges and work towards international environmental goals. The partnership includes 186 member governments as well as civil society, Indigenous Peoples, women, and youth, with a focus on integration and inclusivity. Over the past three decades, the GEF has provided more than $25 billion in financing and mobilized $145 billion for country-driven priority projects. The family of funds includes the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund, Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund (NPIF), and Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency Trust Fund (CBIT).

Quotes and details about the winning projects:

C3 Labs – Collaboration for Complex Challenges: addressing the food-biodiversity-climate nexus

Media contact: Gabriela Goldman - gabriela.goldman@undp.org
https://www.undp.org/

“The C3 Labs project tackles persistent barriers to collaborative solutions for complex development challenges. By piloting a Fellowship Program and Collaboration Lab in Kenya and Thailand, with a focus on the food-biodiversity-climate nexus, the project tests whether fostering trust, collaboration, and systems thinking can drive institutional change. A Global Learning Lab aims to build evidence and influence global policies to support systemic practices. Aligned with the GEF Innovation Window, C3 Lab aims to demonstrate scalable, transformative approaches to global environmental challenges.” - Herman Brouwer, Senior Advisor, multi-stakeholder collaboration for food, agriculture and nature, Wageningen University & Research

This project focuses on strengthening the evidence base to accelerate systemic, collaborative, and adaptive approaches to address complex environmental challenges. By homing in on the food-biodiversity-climate nexus, it seeks to support greater integration of government and development sector programing across the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets, and connect to national pathways for food systems transformation. It will also generate practical guidance on how to bridge the gap between the theories of collaboration and systems transformation and their real-world application.

Amount: $1.9 million
Implementing agency: United Nations Development Programme
Partners: Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation; Food and Agriculture Organization; United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Location: Global

Accelerating Rapid Transition of Subsidies and Incentives (ARTSI) Grants Mechanism

Media contact: Jenny Parker - jparker@conservation.org
https://www.cepf.net

“The GEF’s Innovation Window is driving new solutions to our biggest environmental challenges. At CEPF, we've seen how powerful innovative funding can be, helping over 2,700 organizations protect biodiversity and improve lives. By supporting projects like ARTSI, which focuses on creating better economic incentives for conservation and sustainable management, the Innovation Window ensures that bold ideas — no matter where they originate — have the opportunity to transform local and global efforts towards biodiversity conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable development.” - Jack Tordoff, Managing Director of The Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF)

This project will develop a business model that combines creating new funding pathways to support incentive reform and providing tested models and other support and capacity building to those willing to engage in incentive reform. This will create a mechanism to gather funds and expertise from multiple donors, and from public and philanthropic spaces to support subsidy reform efforts and address those barriers over an initial five-year period.

Amount: $1.9 million
Implementing agency: Conservation International
Partners: The Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund; Blue Nature Alliance; Seed Fund for Country Packages for Forests, Nature and Climate
Location: Global

Private Finance and Investments for Nature-Positive: Developing a Framework and Guidance for Measurement, Targets, and Innovative Investment Strategies on Nature

Media contact: Daniela Tulip - daniela.tulip@financeforbiodiversity.org, Rita Neves e Cunha - rita.cunha@financeforbiodiversity.org
https://www.financeforbiodiversity.org/

“We are honored to receive GEF support for this transformative initiative, which will help align financial flows with nature-positive outcomes by equipping private financial institutions with clear guidance and frameworks. Together with our partners and finance community, we aim to bridge the gap between ambition and action by enabling financial institutions to measure and manage their impacts on nature and build biodiversity into decision-making. This work will support the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and aims to unlock sustainable investment opportunities for nature recovery.” - Anita de Horde, Co-founding Executive Director of Finance for Biodiversity Foundation

This project focuses on developing a comprehensive guidance on finance for nature-positive, with a framework to be used by investors, banks, and insurers that is interoperable with other parts of the financial system. It will offer authoritative guidance on developing innovative nature-positive portfolios and financing mechanisms, featuring key case studies and effective impact strategies. It will also offer implementation support for investors developing nature-related opportunities, based on leading practice.

Amount: $900,000
Implementing agency: World Wildlife Fund-US (WWF-US)
Partners: Finance for Biodiversity Foundation; UNEP Finance Initiative
Location: Global

Accelerating Integration, Policy Coherence, and Food Systems Investment with the TCC – Learning from Africa’s Food Systems Vanguard Countries

Media contact: Ms. Mwandwe Chileshe - MChileshe@agra.org
https://agra.org/

“In 2023, world leaders united to endorse the historic COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action, highlighting the urgent need for political will and accelerated action to achieve their development goals in their own unique contexts. Through this GEF8 Innovation Window project, AGRA proudly joins with the World Bank, 4SD, the Africa Food Systems Forum, GAIN, and WWF to support four governments in translating the declaration’s commitments into tangible outcomes, for their countries and communities.” - Agnes Kalibata, President of AGRA

In this project, four African countries will pioneer integrated and innovative approaches to food systems transformation, including the “whole of government” engagement, which can help inform the way forward following various continental and global agreements. This builds on the technical cooperation collaborative effort created to deliver on the COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action.

Amount: $1.9 million
Implementing agency: World Bank
Partners: Africa Food Systems Alliance; Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition; World Wide Fund for Nature; 4SD Foundation
Location: Malawi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania

Revolutionizing Indicators of (Un)sustainable Wildlife Use and Trade by Harnessing Social Media Big Data

Media contact: press@iucn.org
https://iucn.org/

“The sustainable use of wild species benefits billions of people globally and incentivizes conservation. However, overexploitation and illegal wildlife use significantly contribute to species declines and extinction. Current methods for tracking and measuring legal and illegal trade are inadequate, hampering our ability to act. With GEF support, IUCN will lead a consortium of experts to develop innovative monitoring systems harnessing the power of social and other digital media, providing essential tools for governments and conservation practitioners in the fight against species loss and extinction.” - Enrico Di Minin, Professor, University of Helsinki

With a focus on filling the critical gap in indicators of unsustainable and sustainable wildlife use and trade, this project seeks to use cutting-edge integration of big data from social media as well as trade statistics and biodiversity databases to develop novel and transformative wildlife use and trade indicators and standardized monitoring frameworks. This will greatly enhance global capacity and efforts to protect and sustainably use wildlife.

Amount: $1.9 million
Implementing agency: International Union for Conservation of Nature
Partners: TRAFFIC; UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre; University of Cambridge; University of Helsinki; University of Oxford; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; Zoological Society of London; Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group
Location: Global

Jaguar Corridors in the Face of Rapid Environmental Change: A Dynamic Monitoring and Assessment System for Prioritizing Conservation Investments

Media contact: Carmen Suarez - csuarez@wwfbolivia.org
https://terradapt.org/

“Conservation in a rapidly changing world requires a high situational awareness of the environmental conditions affecting biodiversity. In South America, climate change and widespread deforestation are threatening species like the jaguar and eliminating important carbon sinks. This project will create a monitoring system that uses cutting edge remote sensing and cloud computing technologies to identify timely spatial priorities for actions like habitat protection and restoration. This provides managers with unprecedented capabilities to track change and know where and how to act strategically to mitigate risks and increase resilience to rapidly emerging threats.” - Andrew Shirk, Executive Director and Co-founder of TerrAdapt

By using earth-observing satellites and automated cloud-based workflows, this project will continuously monitor the changing environment and track where the best remaining wildlife intersects with forests that sequester the most carbon. Protecting these areas addresses both parts of the dual challenge of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Amount: $1.9 million
Implementing agency: WWF-US
Partners: Google; TerrAdapt
Location: Latin America and the Caribbean

AgroWeb3 powered by LACChain: Market Access Window (European Union Deforestation Regulation Compliance)

Media contact: Ilan Melendez - ilanm@iadb.org, Blanca Sandoval - blancasa@iadb.org
https://www.lacchain.net

“LACChain is thrilled to collaborate with IFAD and other organizations to research and develop an advanced compliance tool for the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). This tool will combine satellite-based monitoring with blockchain technology to support smallholder farmers in maintaining compliance, competitiveness, and sustainability. The project will utilize technology from the ‘AgroWeb3 powered by LACChain’, an initiative showcasing the successful partnership between IFAD and IDB Lab. Together, we’re committed to developing digital public goods that drive sustainability, inclusion, and a brighter future for all.” - lIan Melendez, Ecosystem Lead, LACChain at IDB Lab

This project would develop a digital tool that can geo-reference farm plots, and help farmers demonstrate the legality of their land tenure as well as the provenance of their agricultural product through digital certification. It will also clearly distinguish when a farmer is practicing crop rotation, which could be misinterpreted as deforestation. This will help with compliance of the EU’s deforestation regulation, effective from December 30, 2024, which requires all businesses selling within or exporting to the EU to ensure deforestation-free value chains.

Amount: $1.9 million
Implementing agency: International Fund for Agricultural Development
Partners: Innovation Lab of the Inter-American Development Bank; European Space Agency; European Institute of Innovation for Sustainability; French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment
Location: Global