Climate change threatens the durability of GEF results. Droughts, floods, and ecosystem stress put outcomes at risk across focal areas.

GEF has begun addressing these challenges—climate risk screening became mandatory in GEF-7 and programs like Resilient Food Systems piloted resilience tools—but integration is uneven. This evaluation reviews how resilience and adaptation are built into projects, and what strengthens outcomes.

The Resilience, Adaptation Pathways, and Transformation Assessment (RAPTA) framework provides a tool for integrating resilience, but it has not been widely adopted.

Evaluation overview

• Definitions of resilience and adaptation are inconsistent, climate risk screening lacks clear review standards, and most projects omit contingency planning to respond when climate shocks disrupt implementation.
• Projects embedding adaptation and resilience early—particularly Strategic Priority for Adaptation and multitrust fund initiatives—achieved stronger designs, higher outcome ratings, and more sustainable results.
• The report recommends clearer guidance on climate risk mitigation, stronger monitoring of resilience, and systematic inclusion of measures to manage shocks.

Methodology

The evaluation draws on GEF and peer fund strategies, interviews, case studies, statistical analysis, and review of 34 projects with high integration of adaptation or resilience.