Biodiversity buzz: How to tap the Global Environment Facility's billions

The global movement to conserve natural areas and prevent species extinction has garnered considerable momentum in the past year — and there is money to match. Since 1991, the Global Environment Facility, or GEF, has funded environmental projects in the low- and middle-income world as the official financial mechanism for several international conventions that cover biodiversity, climate change, chemicals and waste, land degradation, and international waters. Over that over 30 years span, GEF has financed more than $22 billion, a larger sum than the better-known but beleaguered Green Climate Fund has put toward climate action. But GEF’s obscure profile is quickly changing in the wake of the landmark COP 15 biodiversity agreement inked last December in Montreal. Formally known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, this set of 23 targets includes the so-called 30x30 pledge to conserve 30% of the world’s lands and waters by 2030. In conservation circles, the pact is hailed as akin to a Paris agreement for nature. As extreme weather events from floods to wildfires wreak havoc even in high-income nations, donor countries have put considerable money toward the cause. GEF operates in four-year funding cycles, the most recent of which was approved in 2022 for a record $5.33 billion, the largest in the fund’s history. The current cycle will focus on 11 more specific areas known as integrated programs. These include efforts such as preserving forest biomes in the Amazon and Congo Basin, halting wildlife poaching, encouraging biodiversity-friendly agricultural practices, eliminating hazardous chemicals from supply chains, and developing alternatives to disposable single-use plastics. The climate conference COP 15 spurred donor nations to allocate money specifically for biodiversity, culminating in last month’s launch of the new Global Biodiversity Framework Fund during the Seventh GEF Assembly in Vancouver, Canada. While initial contributions were modest — totaling just $160 million between a pledge from host country Canada and a “down payment” from the U.K. — the new fund is expected to grow considerably as experts peg the global biodiversity funding gap in the vicinity of $700 billion annually. Unlike GEF’s legacy funds, philanthropies and the private sector can contribute to the new biodiversity fund. Operating procedures for the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund will be worked out over the next several months, but the GEF family of funds has a longstanding system for accessing finance. Read on for a primer — and tips on how to sharpen a proposal. Reach for the STARs: Where the money is going GEF operates on a country-driven model, with each of the 144 recipient countries eligible for a fixed sum over each four-year funding cycle. This value is calculated by the System for Transparent Allocation of Resources, or STAR, which relies on a formula based on indicators for biodiversity, climate change, and land degradation; past performance delivering projects and estimated capacity to deliver future projects; and gross domestic product. The minimum allocation is $5 million, with small island developing states, or SIDS, and least-developed countries, or LDCs, guaranteed a floor of $8 million. At the higher end, the top five recipients are Indonesia, with $103.65 million; China, with $93.68 million; Brazil, with $79.83 million; Mexico, with $71.9 million; and Madagascar, with $56.69 million. In the current cycle, 8% of the allocations for the top five, or some $37 million, has been set aside for a competitive grantmaking process in which GEF wants to do more than just finance a conservation project; it wants to influence national policies to produce better environmental outcomes throughout a given country. GEF funding currently operates through a two-step process. First, agencies submit a project identification form, or PIF. The GEF secretariat recorded a webinar in April that walks applicants through the PIF process. If PIF meets technical specifications, including scientific review, it goes to the GEF council, which meets twice yearly. The council approval then starts a 12-month clock for the proposer to design a complete project and request CEO endorsement. Agencies sometimes engage consultants to help prepare these complex documents. Projects up to $2 million are considered medium-sized. Above $2 million constitutes a full-sized project. GEF also funds programs that might consist of several projects across multiple agencies on a similar theme — say, Amazon conservation with different projects in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. It can take anywhere from 18 to 24 months to secure approval for funding, a timeline that GEF hopes to shrink to just 12 months with the new biodiversity fund by making applications a one-step process. Streamlining is a widely shared objective, but must be done carefully. “There’s always a tradeoff,” said Joshua Schneck, GEF and GCF task manager for global programs at the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “There are a lot of safeguards that go into developing projects like free, prior, and informed consent and good procurement standards so that there’s not corruption.” Stay focused: National focal points are in the driver’s seat Every country that receives GEF funding designates an operational focal point. This person is usually a civil servant based in an environment ministry. “Operational focal points are the gatekeepers for using GEF funding,” said GEF secretariat Senior Policy Officer Jonathan Caldicott. No project or program will proceed without their buy-in. While focal points are an optimal entry point for working on environmental or conservation issues in a given country, they can be overtaxed, especially in lower-income countries with under-resourced public sectors. Oftentimes, the same person is the focal point for all GEF as well as Green Climate Fund applications. That means a lot of paperwork on one desk. But focal points are also motivated to get projects through GEF’s funding hoops or risk leaving dollars on the table. The STAR allocation is not an entitlement. Any unused funds by the end of a replenishment cycle are reallocated. Coming from an environment ministry, a focal point is likely to have a project to-do list based on national political priorities and existing research into biodiversity and conservation needs. But outside agencies that partner with national governments to deliver projects on the ground also have an agenda. “Agencies will have ideas of what they want to do in the country and will be coming to the operational focal point pitching their ideas,” said Caldicott. Choose wisely: 18 agencies implement GEF-funded projects A national government submits a proposal to the GEF fund in partnership with one of 18 accredited agencies. These range from U.N. agencies to multilateral development banks to global environmental NGOs. Historically, the U.N. Development Programme, the U.N. Environment Programme, and the Food and Agricultural Organization have dominated GEF delivery. For example, they account for 68% of projects already funded thus far during the current replenishment cycle. “There was considerable discussion in the last replenishment about this idea of concentration of GEF resources in a small number of agencies,” said Caldicott. “How do we spread more broadly, particularly to regional development banks?” One possible reason for this is that the banks’ day-to-day dialogue in the country where they work is with finance ministries rather than environment ministries. However, the banks will oversee 25% of the funding in the new biodiversity fund, which will force them to take a larger role in GEF projects. This guarantee is a welcome addition for development bankers. “There was an impression that perhaps there was a lack of interest,” said Gmelina Ramírez, GEF executive coordinator at the Inter-American Development Bank. “We can be more active partners, like we have always wanted to.” GEF wants development banks more involved because they can help projects meet the fund’s new co-financing policy: A goal of $7 dollars for every $1 GEF dollar. While conservation NGOs can’t bring that kind of money to the table, they are a key implementing partner in GEF projects. Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and World Wildlife Federation-US are all accredited agencies eligible to receive GEF funding for projects executed in partnership with a national government. They bring deep conservation expertise to the table that a broader U.N. agency or bank may lack. “IUCN’s niche is that we’re the leader in science-based conservation,” said Schneck of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, noting that the membership-based union looks for GEF projects on forest conservation, Indigenous-led conservation, key biodiversity areas, and the IUCN-managed Red List of Threatened Species. These smaller players among GEF-accredited agencies may be more receptive to fresh proposals. “IUCN’s doors are always open to new ideas,” said Schneck. “If it’s an idea just at the start, you’re going to have to make some engagements. If you’ve got work that’s already ongoing, something that could potentially be scaled up, that’s a different kind of opportunity.” At the end of the day, however, a project doesn’t move forward without convincing a country’s focal point. “In a country-driven model, they work with agencies they like that they think will be able to deliver,” Caldicott said. Know your science: In nature conservation, scientists will weigh in GEF brings scientists to the table through the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel, or STAP. This panel has made several resources available to those drafting project proposals. The document “Enabling Elements of Good Project Design” covers eight guidance points in areas such as stakeholder engagement, behavior change, and systems transformation. For proposed climate adaptation projects, there is a detailed decision tree to consult. STAP also published its overall project screening guidelines. Clark University professor Ed Carr is one of the nine scientists serving on STAP. Among the range of considerations, a few jump out to him. First, have a clear theory of change. “Explain exactly how the particular intervention you are proposing to implement will bring about changes that address the environmental challenge in question,” he said. Second, think about the long term. “The GEF is the funding mechanism by which money moves to projects that will further the goals laid out in various multilateral environmental agreements. All of these agreements address environmental challenges in a rapidly changing world,” he said. “Are the problems we worry about today going to be the most important problems in 20 years?” Third, think about transformation. “How will the interventions proposed under a given project bring about the scale and depth of change needed to address the environmental challenge that project seeks to address?” he said. “Transformative change is very complex and in many ways uncertain — I believe that we can catalyze processes of transformative change, but their complexity and uncertainty are such that we cannot control the pathways of change that emerge. This creates new challenges for project design, particularly theories of change.” Locals know best: Work with communities that inhabit key biodiversity areas The GEF family of funds increasingly prioritizes the role of local communities on the front lines of conservation work, especially Indigenous communities. By some measures, 80% of the world’s biodiversity is located on traditional Indigenous land. The organization’s CEO Carlos Manuel Rodríguez has publicly floated the idea of expanding GEF beyond national governments to allow subnational entities, like local governments and Indigenous groups, to sit in the driver’s seat of GEF projects. For starters, 20% of the money in the new Global Biodiversity Framework Fund will be set aside for Indigenous groups, although this is an “aspirational” goal that must be codified as the new fund’s rules are written over the coming months. Giovanni Reyes, a member of the Kankanaey-Igorot tribe from Luzon island in the Philippines, experienced GEF’s evolution firsthand. The Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources in partnership with UNDP sought GEF funding to expand the country’s system of protected natural areas. But when Indigenous leaders like Reyes saw the proposed maps, they argued that many of the lands were already subject to traditional Indigenous governance that produced better biodiversity outcomes. So they made a counterproposal: “Why not use the funds for protected areas instead to identify areas within ancestral domains that are considered indigenous community conservation areas [ICCAs]?” said Reyes. “[Indigenous people] don’t call [such lands] conserved areas in the first place — they call it the ‘cathedral,’ or a ritual site where they bury their ancestors.” Such spiritual attachment, Reyes said, “explains the vehemence why [we] resist any kind of land use or designation like protected areas without first understanding what they really do.” The end result was a successful GEF project funded from 2015 to 2019 with $1.75 million and another $4 million in co-financing to formalize the ICCA system and map out which lands are under ancestral governance. This exercise built trust between Indigenous groups and the government so that both the nationally legislated protected areas and the ICCA system can coexist. For Indigenous groups, the official imprimatur is a bulwark against mining interests seeking coal, gold, and nickel. “That’s why we are registering the ICCAs that were mapped at UNEP,” said Reyes, now president of the Philippine ICCA Consortium. “It provides a layer of protection.” Start small: Consider a GEF small grant before embarking on a bigger project For nascent conservation ideas that need seed funding, GEF is still an option. UNDP administers the GEF’s Small Grants Programme, which provides up to $50,000 directly to community-based organizations in 127 countries. Calls for proposals go out once or twice annually and applications are processed by UNDP’s in-country coordinator. Each country designates priority landscapes or seascapes to focus applications. In a small island development state, the priority might encompass the whole island. In a larger country, it’s more likely to be a so-called key biodiversity area. While the GEF full-sized project application is a complex multi-layered process with considerable paperwork and compliance requirements, small grants are designed to be easy. Applications can even be made via video in the case of a group without the capacity to fill out written forms. The Small Grants Programme is thus a good opportunity for development professionals advising grassroots organizations. It’s also a resource for philanthropies and development banks looking to make impact investments in promising ideas. “We play a broker role, a grantmaker-plus role, where we share these experiences with external interested parties so that they can learn from successful cases and scale them up,” said the program’s global manager, Yoko Watanabe. “We do the testing with the seed money so that we can show something works for it to be taken up by others. We are an incubator of innovation.” As such, Watanabe encourages anyone interested in environmental work but new to a given country to come and see UNDP. “Whenever there is a new partner who wants to come to the country and work with women’s groups or Indigenous groups, there is already great work happening,” she said. “If you are working with $1 million, you don’t need to do this from scratch — talk to our national coordinator on the ground.”