Evaluating how GEF enabling activities move from design to impact helps identify gaps in logic, monitoring, and guidance.

The Annual Thematic Evaluations Report 2012, the second in this series, presents updates on ongoing work and conclusions from completed evaluations. It provides a progress update on the Evaluation of GEF Enabling Activities, launched in May 2012, which examines how enabling activities help countries meet environmental convention obligations and whether they catalyze broader programming; final results will inform the Fifth Overall Performance Study (OPS5).

It also summarizes the completed Evaluation of GEF Focal Area Strategies, conducted in 2012 using theory of change analysis and consultations with the Secretariat to assess the design and logic of GEF-5 (2010–14) strategies.

The report finds that enabling activities remain central for capacity building and reporting, but their long-term influence is difficult to track without stronger monitoring.

For focal area strategies, it concludes that while structured frameworks exist, causal linkages are weak and guidance uneven. The report recommends clarifying results chains, improving monitoring of enabling activities, and strengthening the design and implementation guidance of focal area strategies.