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Launched in 1991 and restructured after the Rio Summit, the
Global Environment Facility (GEF) provides the financial resources
to developing countries to meet their obligations under the
CBD, along with other multilateral environmental agreements.
Currently GEF projects address six global environmental issues:
- biodiversity
- climate change
- international waters
- land degradation
- the ozone layer
- persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
CBD COPs determine the policy, strategy, priorities and eligibility
criteria in biodiversity field for the financial mechanism,
which issues is addressed at every COP meeting. Thus the financial
mechanism operates under the guidance of the COP, and it is
also accountable to it. GEF Council is the main governing
body, which is comprised of 32 members representing GEF member
countries. GEF Assembly is comprised of all GEF members, and
it convenes every four year to review the operation of the
facility. Each country has designated Focal Point(s). The
Political Focal Points deal with policies and communications,
while the Operational Focal Points are responsible for programme
coordination in eligible countries. GEF projects are managed
by the GEF Implementing Agencies:
- the United Nations Environment Programme
- the United Nations Development Programme
- the World Bank
GEF funds a variety of project types:
- Small Grants Programme (grants of up to $100,000)
- Medium-Sized Projects (MSPs, less than $1 million GEF
support, with expedited procedures)
- Full-size projects (more than $1 million GEF support,
must be approved by the GEF Council)
- Project preparation grants (through the Project Preparation
and Development Facility, PDF)
- Enabling Activities (help countries to prepare national
inventories, assessments, strategies and action plans in
connection with the Convention on Biological Diversity,
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention
to Combat Desertification and the Convention on POPs)
- Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Program (projects that
demonstrate a positive environmental impact and have basic
financial viability)
GEF funds are contributed by donor countries. In 2002, 32
donor countries pledged $3 billion to fund operations between
2002 and 2006.
NGO participation
NGOs play a variety of important roles both in the development
and in the execution of GEF projects, thus their participation
is crucial not only at the project level, but also at the
policy level. Therefore NGOs have agreed to form the so-called
GEF NGO network. The network is represented at the GEF decision
making events (Council and Assembly meetings) by the Regional
Focal Points (RFPs). The regional focal points should serve
to coordinate GEF-related NGO activities in the regions in
cooperation with the Central Contact Point. Specific responsibilities
include:
(1) Provide regional notification of upcoming GEF-NGO Consultation
and GEF Council meeting and distribute relevant documents;
(2) Coordinate nomination and selection of regional delegates
for the GEF Consultation and Council meetings and forward
information to Central Contact Point;
(3) Liaise regularly with Central Contact Point on matters
of relevance to NGOs including information exchange, input
into GEF policy documents, document distribution, GEF-NGO
Consultation logistics and agenda development;
(4) Collect, coordinate, and provide a brief report on regional
concerns relevant to the upcoming GEF meeting to the Central
Contact Point for distribution to Consultation participants;
(5) Report back to the region and interested parties on GEF
Council meeting through the distribution of the NGO report
on the GEF Council meeting.
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