Global Environment Facility Research Articles

Lean, Clean and Green: A new model of multilateral development bank for building infrastructure in Asia and beyond—An interview with AIIB President Jin Liqun

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s president Mr. Jin Liqun shares with JIPD Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Gu Qingyang, his passion for infrastructure finance, as he reflects upon his goal of steering an environmentally friend and corruption-free AIIB toward building social-impacting infrastructure across Asia.From governmental departments to international financial institutes, Mr. Jin Liqun has undertaken almost every essential role in finance. With his vast experience across the private and public sectors, particularly in multilateral development banks, Mr. Jin Liqun currently serves as Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)’s first President since its founding in 2016, following a stint as Secretary-General of the Multilateral Interim Secretariat created to establish the bank. Beginning from his two decades of governmental experience at the Chinese Ministry of Finance, rising from the rank of Deputy Director General to Vice Minister, Mr. Jin was then called to serve as Vice President, and then Ranking Vice President, of the Asian Development Bank, and later as Alternate Executive Director for China at the World Bank and at the Global Environment Facility. Mr. Jin had also served as Chairman of China International Capital Corporation Ltd., China’s first joint-venture investment bank, in addition to serving as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corporation and as Chairman of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds.

REDD+ Financing to Enhance Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation and Biodiversity Co-benefits: Lessons from the Global Environment Facility

This study explores ways to effectively and efficiently finance Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) activities to enhance climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation by drawing on lessons from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The study analyzed trends in the focal areas of GEF forest-related projects, the executing and implementing agencies involved in GEF forest-related multi-focal area projects, and the cofundraisers’ trends in GEF forest-related multi-focal area projects. The analysis of GEF forest-related projects identified ways to finance REDD+ mobilization and distribution to enhance its multiple benefits. The key agencies that support REDD+ activities and enhance these co-benefits are the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the national governments of developing countries. GEF and the co-fundraisers—multilateral aid agencies, such as UNDP, the World Bank, FAO, the Asian Development Bank, and UNEP, bilateral aid agencies, such as Germany, the United States and the European Union, the private sector and nongovernmental organizations—all work to enhance REDD+ co-benefits. Because private contributions to the GEF are limited, it is important to design a scheme to mobilize more private financing for REDD+.

PROTOCOL: Incentives for climate mitigation in the land use sector: a mixed-methods systematic review of the effectiveness of payment for environment services (PES) on environmental and socio-economic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

PROTOCOL: Incentives for climate mitigation in the land use sector: a mixed-methods systematic review of the effectiveness of payment for environment services (PES) on environmental and socio-economic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

4. Global Environment Facility (GEF)

4. Global Environment Facility (GEF)

Modern Conditions of Biodiversity Conservation in Russian Coal Mining Sector

Today biodiversity is the important factor of sustainable development of industry mining sector. The world community offers various guidences for business to biodiversity conservation, their cornerstone is the hierarchy of mitigation of negative impact “avoid-reduce-restore-offset”. Particular significance is payed to offset compensations. Russia was the participant of the international project under the guidance of the United Nations Development Programme and the Global Environment Facility since 2013. It was gained the positive experience in using of tools and practices of biodiversity conservation at the coal industry enterprises. Implementation tools of results of UNDP/GEF Project aren't still created. Biodiversity of the Kemerovo region and other mining regions is under the threat of destruction.

The fish assemblages of the mangroves of São Tomé island (Gulf of Guinea), patterns of functional diversity

The fish assemblages of the mangroves of São Tomé island (Gulf of Guinea), patterns of functional diversity

International Environment Financing: A Review of the Global Environment Facility

After having played the part of a path-breaker and trend-setter in the early years of its existence, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) came to occupy a vital and wellestablished place in international environmental governance (IEG) from the end of the 1990’s onwards. At present, the GEF faces some obvious challenges that threaten to weaken its stature in the global environmental architecture, namely the issues of its efficiency and role in its current form. The proliferation of new funds and funding machineries over the past years is bringing about major changes in the roles of different funding institutions, including the GEF. Particularly, they result in shifting funds for the GEF’s focal areas from the GEF to other funding institutions, such as the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), which in the opinion of many scholars may relegate the GEF to a minor role in the existing organizational architecture for global environmental financing. As an international funding mechanism approving hundreds of millions of dollars in grants each year, the GEF presents tremendous potential to address some of the most pressing environmental problems threatening human prosperity and survival. The paper, therefore, reviews the Global Environment Facility as an important player in the field of international environmental governance, particularly as it relates to its role within the existing organizational architecture for international environmental financing.

The impact of climate change and energy resources on biodiversity loss: Evidence from a panel of selected Asian countries

Abstract This study examined the relationships between climate change, energy resources, growth specific factors and their resulting impact on biodiversity loss in a panel of 18 selected Asian countries during the period of 2000–2014. The study employed panel fixed effect regression and panel quantile regression to assess the influence of different factors on biodiversity loss at low, medium, and high levels quantile distribution. The results show that climatic factors increase aquaculture production, whereas energy sources and growth specific factors affected the production of aquaculture in a panel of selected countries. Potential habitat area is affected by high population growth and renewable energy consumption whereas Global Environment Facility (GEF) biodiversity index is affected by average precipitation, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, and per capita income. Climatic factors and renewable energy both supported the total fisheries production, whereas nitrous oxide emissions, renewable internal freshwater resources, FDI inflows, per capita income, and population growth affected the production of total fisheries at different quantile distributions.

Exploring the Schemes for Green Climate Fund Financing: International Lessons

Summary As a key issue in recent international climate summits, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) is confronted with the problem of insufficient financing. This paper intends to explore several schemes for raising the public finance of the GCF among developed countries. Lessons from three main ongoing international financing mechanisms have been drawn, including the United Nations (UN) membership dues, Official Development Assistance (ODA), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The indexes that reflect historical emission responsibility (HR) and ability to pay (AP) are also used to share the burden. Results reveal that the ongoing international financing mechanisms vary in their burden sharing results and the shares of existing donors are driven by highly complex reasons. Weighting the HR, UN, and GEF approaches with the Preference Score Compromises (PSC) method could yield a compromise scheme in which the regional contributions are highly similar to those under the GCF initial resource mobilization from 2015 to 2018. GCF financing heavily depends on contributions from the developed countries even if the donor parties are extended to emerging economics. This paper also finds that the decision of the United States to withdraw from climate finance will significantly increase the burden for other donors, particularly for the European Union the contribution share of which is predicted to increase to nearly 14 percentage points. The schemes proposed in this study can provide a useful reference for GCF financing.

Biofuel consumption, biodiversity, and the environmental Kuznets curve: trivariate analysis in a panel of biofuel consuming countries.

This study examined the relationship between biofuel consumption, forest biodiversity, and a set of national scale indicators of per capita income, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, trade openness, and population density with a panel data of 12 biofuels consuming countries for a period of 2000 to 2013. The study used Global Environmental Facility (GEF) biodiversity benefits index and forest biodiversity index in an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework. The results confirmed an inverted U-shaped relationship between GEF biodiversity index and per capita income, while there is flat/no relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth, and between forest biodiversity and economic growth models. FDI inflows and trade openness both reduce carbon emissions while population density and biofuel consumption increase carbon emissions and decrease GEF biodiversity index. Trade openness supports to increases GEF biodiversity index while it decreases forest biodiversity index and biofuel consumption in a region.

Mitigating Climate Change in Africa: Barriers to Financing Low-Carbon Development

Summary Meeting global climate change mitigation goals requires the participation of developing countries in abatement programs to encourage low-carbon development pathways. Incentivizing developing countries to participate in climate change mitigation often requires a mechanism for developed countries to finance projects in poorer countries. While several funding institutions have been established, African country participation has been low. In this analysis, we conduct interviews with climate change policy stakeholders from across the continent and find a general consensus that a lack of institutional capacity has limited the participation of African countries in existing climate change mitigation programs. To confirm this qualitative observation, we use data from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the World Bank to examine the correlation between country-year measures of institutional capacity and the number of projects implemented by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and find that better institutional quality is associated with more GEF projects implemented in a country-year. We propose to address the lack of institutional capacity with the creation of regional institution, or Climate Change Mitigation Institution (CCMI), that specializes in building local capacity by leveraging external capacity as well as facilitates the integration of African countries into global climate change mitigation efforts by improving capacity, strengthening research and development, forming partnerships, and coordinating the disbursement of financing.

The Sud Expert Plantes Développement Durable (SEP2D) Program, Supporting Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) Achievement and the Aichi Targets

Abstract In keeping with the 2011–2020 Strategic Plan adopted by the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010, France scaled up its biodiversity action with a new National Biodiversity Strategy (NBS) for 2011–2020. Target 16 aims at strengthening international solidarity and ensuring greater mainstreaming of biodiversity into French development assistance, and target 17 addresses reinforcing green diplomacy and international governance for biodiversity. In this context, France launched in 2015 the Sud Expert Plantes Developpement Durable (SEP2D) program, a five-year multilateral program aiming at sustaining the scientific communities in 22 francophone countries in western and central Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Southeast Asia. Focusing on the sustainable management of plant biodiversity, SEP2D is supported by Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD), the French Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Ministere des...

Assessing governance performance in transboundary water systems

Transboundary water systems cover a substantial area of the planet and provide critical ecosystem services for much of the global population. The International Waters (IW) Focal Area of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) aims to improve cooperation among countries in governance of transboundary water systems. There is the need to assess the outcomes, outputs and impacts of GEF IW initiatives. The current Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis/Strategic Action Programme approach of the GEF uses indicators in three categories – process, stress and state. A Transboundary Waters Governance Assessment Framework is proposed that incorporates the three above indicator categories and includes four new indicator categories: governance architecture, stakeholder engagement, social justice and human well-being. These additional categories are considered necessary to bring assessment of GEF IW initiatives in line with current governance thinking. The indicator categories are sequential, starting with governance architecture and ending with human well-being as the ultimate objective.

Beyond Biodiversity Conservation: Why Policy Needs Social Theory, Social Theory Needs Justice, and Justice Needs Policy

Beyond Biodiversity Conservation: Why Policy Needs Social Theory, Social Theory Needs Justice, and Justice Needs Policy

Financing India's NAMA Targets

NAMAs as policy instrument developed by UNFCCC are vital for global efforts to reduce carbon emission reduction. India has promised to reduce its emission intensity by 20-25% of 2005 level by 2020 as a NAMA commitment. Even though it is not binding, India will need to look for finances in order to achieve its target if it has to join global efforts in carbon mitigation. NAMAs can be divided into three types: Unilateral NAMA, Supported NAMA and Credited NAMA on the basis of how they are financed. As per the Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) procedures, the developing countries have to report their efforts towards achieving their NAMA targets through Biennial Update Reports (BUR). India has to submit its first report in 2014. Four important channels of funds and operational initiatives which would help India achieve its NAMA targets are: 1. Use of International funds through the NAMA registry, the Global Environment Facility or the Green Climate Fund. 2. Developing the Program of Activities of the UNFCCC to promote emission reduction initiatives. 3. Promotion of Renewable energy through market mechanism (REC) scheme. 4. Promotion of Energy efficiency through market-based Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) mechanism. The operational process and their relevance with respect to reduction of emission reduction to achieve NAMA targets have been discussed in the paper.

Political economy, poverty, and polycentrism in the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) for Climate Change Adaptation

Climate change adaptation refers to altering infrastructure, institutions or ecosystems to respond to the impacts of climate change. Least developed countries often lack the requisite capacity to implement adaptation projects. The Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) is a scheme where industrialised countries have disbursed $934.5 million in voluntary contributions to support 213 adaptation projects across 51 least developed countries. But how effective are its efforts—and what sort of challenges have arisen as it implements projects? To provide some answers, this article documents the presence of four “political economy” attributes of adaptation projects—processes we have termed enclosure, exclusion, encroachment and entrenchment—cutting across economic, political, ecological and social dimensions. Based on extensive field research, we find the four processes at work simultaneously in our case studies of five LDCF projects being implemented in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, the Maldives and Vanuatu. The article concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of the political economy of adaptation for analysts, program managers and climate researchers at large. In sum, the politics of adaptation must be taken into account so that projects can maximise their efficacy and avoid marginalising those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

4. Global Environment Facility (GEF)

4. Global Environment Facility (GEF)

Effective Finance to Enhance REDD+ Co-Benefits: Lessons from Global Environment Facility Finance

Effective Finance to Enhance REDD+ Co-Benefits: Lessons from Global Environment Facility Finance

The CLME+ Strategic Action Programme: An ecosystems approach for assessing and managing the Caribbean Sea and North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems

For more than a decade, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), national governments, several United Nations agencies and regional organisations have been supporting the development, and now also the implementation of the Strategic Action Programme (SAP) for the Sustainable Management of the Shared Living Marine Resources of the Caribbean and North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems (resp. CLME and NBSLME, jointly referred to as the CLME+ region). These Large Marine Ecosystems or LMEs provide critical ecosystem services supporting human well-being in this region, particularly for the fisheries and tourism sectors. Unsustainable fisheries, habitat degradation and pollution are three key threats to CLME+ marine ecosystems, and their effects are being exacerbated by climate change. Root causes of these threats include: weak governance; limited human and financial resources; inadequate knowledge; inadequate public awareness and participation; inadequate consideration of the value of ecosystem goods and services; population and cultural pressures; and trade and external dependency. The CLME+ SAP addresses these weaknesses through six distinct strategies aimed at strengthening regional cooperation, institutional reform, and capacity building at the regional, national and local levels over the short (0–5 years) and medium (6–10 years) term. The SAP has been endorsed at the political level by 24 countries and it will be implemented through a partnership approach: “the Global Alliance for the coordinated implementation of the CLME+ SAP” (“CLME+ SAP Alliance”).

Expanding Kenya's protected areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity to maximize coverage of plant diversity.

Biodiversity is highly valuable and critically threatened by anthropogenic degradation of the natural environment. In response, governments have pledged enhanced protected-area coverage, which requires scarce biological data to identify conservation priorities. To assist this effort, we mapped conservation priorities in Kenya based on maximizing alpha (species richness) and beta diversity (species turnover) of plant communities while minimizing economic costs. We used plant-cover percentages from vegetation surveys of over 2000 plots to build separate models for each type of diversity. Opportunity and management costs were based on literature data and interviews with conservation organizations. Species richness was predicted to be highest in a belt from Lake Turkana through Mount Kenya and in a belt parallel to the coast, and species turnover was predicted to be highest in western Kenya and along the coast. Our results suggest the expanding reserve network should focus on the coast and northeastern provinces of Kenya, where new biological surveys would also fill biological data gaps. Meeting the Convention on Biological Diversity target of 17% terrestrial coverage by 2020 would increase representation of Kenya's plant communities by 75%. However, this would require about 50 times more funds than Kenya has received thus far from the Global Environment Facility.