48th Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council Meeting

On Tuesday, 2 June 2015, Naoko Ishii, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), opened the 48th meeting of the GEF Council and introduced the agenda, noting that the Council needs to evaluate if the GEF is on the right track in the context of a rapidly changing global context, with major decisions expected during 2015 at the Third Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3), the post-2015 development agenda including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the new climate regime.

Leander Treppel (Austria; Council member for Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxembourg, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Turkey) was elected as Co-Chair of the meeting.

In the morning, the Council discussed the implementation of the GEF 2020 strategy. Opening the discussion, CEO Ishii highlighted the global context in which GEF 2020 must operate, and highlighted four tracks for delivery of the GEF 2020 vision: strong emphasis on integrated and innovative programming; enhanced strategic country engagement; sharper definition of the GEF’s “niche” in global environmental financing; and ensuring effectiveness and efficiency of the GEF partnership. Guest speaker Jeff Seabright, Chief Sustainability Officer, Unilever, spoke on the role of the private sector in reversing environmental degradation. He called for using the energy, innovation, capital and scale of the private sector to achieve transformational change by working to overcome barriers to investment.

GEF Council Members also discussed agenda items on: the Annual Monitoring Review; the GEF Business Plan and FY16 Corporate Budget; the Four-Year Work Program and Budget of the GEF Independent Evaluation Office; GEF Agency Compliance with Policies on Environmental and Social Safeguards, Gender and Fiduciary Standards; and Expediting the Preparation of the Stock of Delayed Projects.