To: Nani G. Oruga, The Bees Trees
From: Chris N. Eppers, Solar Musketeers
Re: How to start learning about the GEF and general NGO views.
Dear Nani,
Thanks for your letter. Even all of my grumbling couldn't keep you away from
the Global Environment Facility! While it is not the ideal organisation (what
is?), it does deserve some consideration. At this point it is the financial
mechanism that is most open to NGOs. In that respect, and also because of its
links with other development organisations, it is one possibility for achieving
more far-reaching changes in environment and development assistance.
There is a spectrum of NGO views on the GEF and a variety of ways to be involved.
Some NGOs prefer to keep it at an arm's length (or further) and comment on its
activities, while others participate very closely in a variety of GEF-related
activities. Often the different strategies can complement each other. Each NGO
will have to decide itself how it feels it should be involved.
You asked for some background information on the GEE The GEF Secretariat has
its own brochures, and the other institutions making up the GEF have some publications
and documents about their GEF activities. More specific information is available
from the agencies responsible for the projects, called Implementing Agencies
(IAs). These are the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Bank. The attached box gives
sources of information on the GEF
To start you off, though, I'll put together a few pages of essential information
on the GEF and some history (Letter 2). If you are really serious about being
involved in the GEF I would be happy to explain in more detail how NGOs fit
into GEF activities as well as the other way around. When I first started working
on the GEF my life would have been much easier if someone had collected and
summarised what an NGO needed to know to work effectively on the GEF and participate
in GEF projects. If I can't answer all of your questions, I'll call on some
of my friends who are old GEF hands for help.
The GEF as you may have heard, has recently been reorganised ('restructured'
in the GEF jargon) and is currently sorting itself out, and quite quickly, too.
This makes it difficult, particularly in discussing specific policies, to give
an up-to-the-minute report on the current state of affairs. Likewise, the NGOs
have just recently initiated a more organised approach to participation in the
policy level of the GEF. NGOs still have to firm things up a bit and 1 hope
you will contribute on that front.
I'll get the background information off to you in the next couple of days.
Let me know if you have any questions.
