As a global network of partners and stakeholders, the Global Environment Facility is uniquely positioned to serve as a knowledge and learning entity for the planet. This will enable the GEF to address environmental challenges effectively, as well as influence critical decision making regarding the global environment, culminating in sustainable and scalable solutions. The Strategy for Knowledge Management and Learning (KM&L) is therefore key to ensuring the GEF’s operational effectiveness and services that meet the needs of all stakeholders, while advancing its mandate to safeguard the planet.
Guided by the Council and with full engagement by GEF agencies and the Science and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP), the proposed KM strategy embodies the collective efforts of the GEF partnership to foster a systematic and coordinated approach to KM&L. With STAP guidance, the strategy is anchored on a Theory of Change that outlines “a simple set of necessary and sufficient causal pathways that interact with and reinforce one another” to deliver desired KM&L impacts in the context of GEF operations. The GEF vision is to become an efficient, knowledge-driven, and learning entity for investing in the planet. The goal is to improve and enhance knowledge capture, sharing, and learning processes across the GEF partnership. This goal reflects the role of knowledge as a key asset of the GEF partnership, and its fundamental role in achieving sustainability, systems transformation, and scale-up of results for high-impact outcomes.
The KM&L strategy is intended to guide and promote a more systematic approach to how the GEF harnesses its knowledge resources, establish an appropriate system to manage the resources, and facilitate learning across the partnership. It is therefore framed around three main objectives:
- Embed cutting-edge knowledge into investments to generate public goods in line with the GEF mandate and enhance the role of knowledge management in projects and programs.
- Increase knowledge flows through platforms, partnership, and communities of practice.
- Create and enable the environment for learning and capacity building for greater exchange of knowledge and collaboration across the partnership.
To deliver on the objectives, the GEF Secretariat will strengthen its role as a knowledge broker and a think tank, while facilitating engagement in KM&L by the broader GEF partnership. This calls for the GEF to anchor KM&L by investing in three pillars: people, process, and systems. Underpinning these three pillars are supporting activities related to education and training, IT infrastructure, human resources, security, and adaptive management. The GEF also needs to address these pillars to help strengthen the KM&L agenda in the long term.
With this foundation and considering the eighth replenishment (GEF-8) strategic vision and feedback compiled from across the GEF partnership, including the cross-cutting considerations from STAP, the GEF has identified four key strategic directions for pursuing the vision and objectives for KM&L:
Strategic Direction 1: Align KM&L with GEF-8 delivery, with action areas on strengthening the knowledge base for a blue and green recovery, harnessing Integrated Program platforms for increased learning and knowledge sharing, and fostering interactive engagement by GEF focal points.
Strategic Direction 2: Strengthen KM&L in programming, with action areas on enabling the GEF to reinforce ongoing efforts on mainstreaming KM&L across all GEF investments—from designing and implementing projects and programs, to promoting South–South exchange for knowledge sharing and learning.
Strategic Direction 3: Generate global public goods, which will ensure that the GEF partnership supports efforts to facilitate the gathering, curating, and sharing of lessons learned and best practices from GEF investments in key priority areas of work.
Strategic Direction 4: Align KM&L with communications and outreach to foster a more coordinated and appropriately funded approach at the global, agency, program, and project level for improved communication of GEF impacts and results, in line with relevant communications and outreach plans, and the GEF Communications and Visibility Policy.