High Level Round Tables

The upcoming GEF Assembly is emerging as a landmark opportunity for the GEF family to embrace renewed goals and directions for the Facility in its quest to become ever more relevant to solving the mounting problems facing the global environment.

To guide this revamped effort, the GEF is adopting a vision and mission for the facility that will orient the strategic directions, programming of resources and implementation of projects and programs in a manner that best addresses the key priorities identified by countries and the international community. This new approach is already being reflected in both the GEF-6 strategy and in the GEF2020 framework that are nearing completion.

GEF’s vision for 2020 is to be a champion of the global environment by creating partnerships and strategically investing in solutions that:

1. Address the underlying drivers of global environmental degradation. With an emphasis on driver-focused solutions, the GEF will be able to address the root causes of environmental degradation at local, national and international levels.
2. Innovate and achieve global environmental benefits at scale. GEF funds should be invested in projects that are highly innovative and have the potential to be scalable across multiple countries and regions. These projects should also aim to stimulate policy, market or behavioural transformations.
3. Create synergies across our programs, delivering multiple global environmental benefits. By seeking to generate multiple environmental benefits, particularly building on its comparative advantage of operating across most of the key dimensions of the global environment, the GEF can improve the cost-effectiveness of its investments, taking advantage of its unique position of serving multiple Conventions.
4. Deliver the highest impact, cost-effectively. GEF must focus on maximizing the global environmental benefits by identifying cost-effective solutions to global environmental challenges, together with improving the ways in which the GEF operates.

During the Assembly Ministerial Level Round Table will be organized to discuss these four major themes along with the steps that must be taken and measures that need to be introduced in GEF-6 to start realizing the newly developed vision for the facility. The Round Tables will be held on May 28-29 and they will include guest speakers. Head of delegations are invited to participate. Information on how to register will be disseminate during the Assembly.