The Journey to Rio: Gathering Evidence on Expectations for the GEF

Global Environment Facility (GEF): While the world has not transferred to a global green economic order, GEF projects attest that this greening shift does occur at the local and regional levels and can grow to affect global economies.

Despite odds, the GEF has made progress towards achieving expectations on which it was created. Going forward there is a need to recognize that to meet existing and emerging expectations, the GEF has to be adequately funded. Stakeholders must join earnestly together to map these in a more carefully chartered journey to preserve and protect the environment.

Rio de Janeiro, June 19, 2012 and June 22, 2012– The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Evaluation Office launches "The Journey to Rio: Gathering Evidence on Expectations for the GEF" at Rio+20 – the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. In the form of an E-Book, this review assesses the extent to which the GEF has met the expectations on which it was created 20 years ago on the eve of the Earth Summit in 1992. The E-Book uses overall performance studies (OPSs) of the GEF Evaluation Office as the basis to examine the GEF response to the 1992 Earth Summit expectations.

The GEF has gathered a lot of evaluative evidence on its achievements. However, mapping the performance evidence against expectations is a necessarily qualitative exercise. The expectations were a cloud of views some with a high level of common understanding, but others highly contentious and politically sensitive.

"With this review, the GEF Evaluation Office strives for a balance between a sound methodology and a light tone; and thus the E-book takes the reader on an international journey through time to visit places where both expectations were formulated and evaluative evidence presented for fulfillment. Like any travel agency interested in client satisfaction, the reader traveler is also invited to make ratings on the comparison," said Rob D. van den Berg, Director of the GEF Evaluation Office.

One of the main themes emerging from the review is that while the world has not transferred to a global green economic order, GEF projects attest that this greening shift occurs at local, regional levels and can grow to affect global economies with resultant global environmental benefits.

Despite odds, the GEF has made progress towards achieving expectations on which it was created. Going forward there is a need to recognize that to meet existing and emerging expectations, the GEF has to be adequately funded. Stakeholders must join earnestly together to map these in a more carefully chartered journey to preserve and protect the environment.

More information about the E-Book here.

Media contact:

• Christian Hofer, Senior Communications Officer, GEF chofer@thegef.org, +1 202 413 4185
• Baljit Wadhwa, Senior Evaluation Officer, GEF Evaluation Office, bwadhwa@thegef.org, +1 202 473 0266

 

About Global Environment Facility

The GEF unites 182 countries in partnership with international institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the private sector to address global environmental issues while supporting national sustainable development initiatives. Today the GEF is the largest public funder of projects to improve the global environment. An independently operating financial organization, the GEF provides grants for projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants.

Since 1991, the GEF has achieved a strong track record with developing countries and countries with economies in transition, providing $10.5 billion in grants and generating $51 billion in co-financing for over 2,700 projects in over 165 countries. Through its Small Grants Programme (SGP), the GEF has also made more than 14,000 small grants directly to civil society and community based organizations, totaling $634 million. For more information, visit www.thegef.org .

The GEF Evaluation Office (GEF EO) has the central role of ensuring the independent evaluation function within the GEF, of setting minimum requirements for monitoring and evaluation, of safeguarding oversight of the quality of M&E systems on program and project level and of sharing evaluative evidence within the GEF partnership. All evaluations produced by the GEF EO are available at the www.gefeo.org.