This Vacancy Announcement is being published by the Water
& Energy Cluster on behalf of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP)
to the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
Background
information: GEF
The GEF has a unique mandate as a financing mechanism under a
number of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs): the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD); the United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification (UNCCD); the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC); the Minamata convention on mercury; and the Stockholm convention
on persistent organic pollutants. The GEF also supports global and regional
agreements on international waters, and transboundary water management. The
GEF’s mission is to safeguard the global environment by supporting developing
countries meet their commitments under these agreements. The GEF’s
responsibilities are often mutually supportive, which enables the synergies
between them to be harnessed in a more holistic, systems approach.
The GEF’s mission is also closely aligned with the
Sustainable Development Goals, in particular on climate action (goal 13), life
below water (14), and life on land (15) (the GEF’s core mission), and also with
the goals on hunger (2), energy (7), and sustainable production and consumption
(12).
The central organising framework of the GEF is the five
focal areas (climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, international
waters, and chemicals and waste); this framework also provides countries with
the opportunity to participate in integrated programming to generate global
environmental benefits in more than one MEA or GEF focal area.
Safeguarding the health of the global environment requires
both responding to pressures and addressing the drivers of environmental
degradation. The latter requires integration across sectors and the promotion
of transformational change in key economic systems. STAP’s guidance has
recommended that: environmental degradation must be tackled in a more
integrated and holistic way; GEF investment should be more coherent with
sustainable development objectives; and the GEF should continue to be catalytic
and innovative, while seeking to effect permanent and transformational change.
The GEF is in the midst of its quadrennial replenishment
discussions which will culminate at the GEF Assembly in June 2018 with
decisions on the size of the replenishment, the programming priorities and
policies for its seventh phase (GEF-7).
In GEF-6 (2014 to 2018), the GEF established three Integrated
Approach Pilots (IAPs) on food security in sub-Saharan Africa, taking
deforestation out of commodity supply chains, and sustainable cities: these seek to achieve market or behavioral transformations,
and integrate focal area and MEA priorities into a broader, more holistic set
of policies, strategies, programs and actions.
The proposed GEF-7 programming architecture will continue
this approach: pursuing greater impact per unit of investment; tackling the
drivers of environmental degradation; promoting greater sectoral and thematic
integration; and contributing to systems change.
The draft GEF-7 programming directions seek to maximise
impact across focal areas through integrated programming. The proposals include
three “Impact Programs” (IPs on food, land use and restoration; sustainable
cities; and sustainable forest management) which collectively address key
drivers of environmental degradation, and offer the potential to contribute to
systemic change. The IPs will help countries pursue holistic and integrated
approaches to promote transformational change in key economic systems in line
with their national development priorities. IPs hold the potential: to enhance
synergies, integration, and the impact of GEF investments; to promote a more
effective use of resources; and to crowd-in private sector funding.
Food, Land Use and Restoration. Increasing demand for food
is a major driver of biodiversity loss, land degradation and depletion of water
resources. This IP will support countries in ensuring that productive lands are
embedded within landscapes that are providing ecosystem services, as well as
protecting the natural ecosystems and soil on which they depend. It will focus
on the following three “entry points”: promoting sustainable food systems to
tackle negative externalities in entire value chains; promoting
deforestation-free agricultural commodity supply chains; and promoting
large-scale restoration of degraded landscapes for sustainable production and
ecosystem services.
Sustainable Cities. This IP will build on a global knowledge
platform developed in the sustainable cities IAP which brings cities and global
expertise together to improve urban planning, policy and financing environments,
for example, by increasing the productivity of existing urban infrastructure,
using evidence-based spatial planning, decarbonizing urban infrastructure,
building resilience, and cascading financing solutions for urban
sustainability, green infrastructure and nature-based solutions, and
conservation of globally important biodiversity in urban landscapes.
Sustainable Forest Management (SFM). This IP will focus on a
three key, transboundary biomes of global importance: the Amazon, the Congo
Basin, and important dryland landscapes. These three biomes are major
integrated ecosystems where a concerted SFM approach focused on their
ecological integrity and functioning can transform the course of development
and produce multiple benefits for biodiversity, climate change, and land
degradation. This would include Interventions such as collaborative approaches
to productive and conservation land uses which improve local livelihoods, while
preserving the ecological integrity and global environmental value of ecosystems.
However, some focal area objectives are best delivered
through discrete, single-focus interventions, which allows countries the
opportunity to pursue interventions which are best aligned with their
priorities. The proposed objectives for the focal areas are:
Biodiversity: mainstream biodiversity across sectors, as
well as landscapes and seascapes; address direct drivers to protect habitats
and species; and further develop biodiversity policy and institutional
frameworks.
Climate Change: promote innovation and technology transfer
for sustainable energy breakthroughs; demonstrate mitigation options with
systemic impacts; and foster enabling conditions for mainstreaming mitigation
concerns into sustainable development strategies.
Land Degradation: enhance on-the-ground implementation of
sustainable land management using the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) tool;
and create an enabling environment to support voluntary LDN target
implementation.
Chemicals and Waste: eliminate chemicals covered by the MEAs
that are used in or emitted from the industrial and agricultural sectors.
International Waters: strengthening Blue Economy
opportunities; improving management in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction; and
enhancing water security in freshwater ecosystems.
Each focal area strategy is designed to ensure that the GEF
provides maximum impacts on the goals of their respective conventions.
Countries choose among the focal area programming options in accordance with
their needs and priorities.