By Abbas Nazil
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council will meet virtually from December 15–19 to review progress in its eighth funding cycle and consider more than $350 million in new financing for high-impact environmental initiatives across its family of funds.
Representatives from 186 member countries will assess proposed allocations through the GEF Trust Fund, Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), and Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), aimed at tackling illegal fishing, restoring degraded ecosystems, strengthening small island states, addressing mercury pollution, improving policy coherence, and supporting regenerative agriculture.
This December meeting marks the second-to-last gathering in the $5.3 billion GEF-8 cycle, which runs through June 2026. Proposed allocations include $291 million through the GEF Trust Fund, $49 million through the LDCF, $3 million through the SCCF, and $29 million through the GBFF.
Together, these funds support six major multilateral environmental conventions and provide integrated responses to biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution challenges.
Council members will also review progress toward GEF-8 targets, highlighting unprecedented delivery and high co-financing ratios, which currently stand at $8.5 per GEF dollar.
Achievements since 2022 include plans to protect 222 million hectares of terrestrial and marine areas, restore nearly 10 million hectares of degraded land, mitigate more than 2.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, improve management of 906 million hectares of marine habitats, strengthen cooperation in 47 shared water ecosystems, and reduce over 261,000 tonnes of hazardous chemicals.
GEF CEO, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, emphasized the need to scale up integrated initiatives that align broader public policies with conservation and restoration priorities, noting that one project alone could protect 840 million hectares of marine habitat and move thousands of tons of fisheries toward sustainable levels.
The proposed GEF Trust Fund work program includes 30 projects in 56 countries, featuring efforts such as the Pacific-wide Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity initiative, a global program to curb illegal tuna fishing, blended finance for regenerative agriculture in Latin America, and measures to address land degradation, peatland emissions, and pollution threats across Africa and Asia.
The LDCF and SCCF will consider $52 million in adaptation-focused projects targeting climate-vulnerable countries, including coastal resilience efforts in Eritrea and Senegal, land-use planning and coastal management in Kiribati, and drought- and saltwater-intrusion response programs in the Marshall Islands.
The GBFF will evaluate a $28.2 million package supporting biodiversity conservation in Colombia, Indonesia, and Madagascar, with strong emphasis on Indigenous Peoples, local communities, ecotourism, and sustainable finance.
Council members will also review a resource mobilization strategy to expand GBFF funding and a new results framework aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
