GEF Prepares for New Funding Cycle

Throughout the week, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) convened scientists and other experts to the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meeting held online to innovate priorities and bold solutions for the next four-year investment cycle, known as GEF-8, which runs from 2022 to 2026.

The scientists worked in numerous breakout groups, with specific and cross-cutting themes, stimulating thinking across disciplines. The discussions revolved around the ‘Building Back Greener’ agenda, meaning that human well-being and planetary health must be placed in the center of policy-making and investment patterns to speed up recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

The Center for Governance and Sustainability's Senior Research Fellow, Niko Urho, participated in a breakout group on the greening of supply chains, where the need for greater transparency across the value chain was highlighted. The need for fiscal reforms was also underscored so that harmful subsidies across sectors can be identified and redirected to sustainability and conservation.

The TAG experts’ inputs, ideas, and insights helped kick off the GEF-8 replenishment process and will be considered in the draft programming directions document, which will be discussed next by donor governments in numerous meetings culminating, in May 2022, in the endorsement of the new programming directions.

Link to news from GEF’s website: More than 400 scientists brainstorm on GEF investment priorities.