Enabling activities are a foundational GEF funding modality that provide targeted grants for countries to prepare national communications, inventories, and plans required under five global environmental conventions.

They generate baseline data, identify priorities, and in some cases establish frameworks that guide broader policy and investment. Despite their central role in helping countries meet convention obligations, they have not been comprehensively assessed until this evaluation.

While enabling activities have been effective in meeting convention reporting requirements, they have been less successful in influencing long-term policy and programming.

Evaluation overview

• Reporting requirements differ across conventions, and enabling activities are not consistently linked to larger GEF projects. This weakens their contribution to long-term planning and often causes delays in approval and implementation.
• When embedded in national policy processes, enabling activities produced stronger results, including higher-quality reporting, integration of strategies into government decision-making, and recovery of projects that began weakly.
• The evaluation recommends clearer links to larger projects, streamlined approval procedures, and stronger alignment with national policy priorities.

Methodology

The evaluation covers over 500 enabling activity projects and over 100 umbrella projects, drawing on portfolio review, surveys, interviews, and case studies in Jamaica, Madagascar, and Thailand.