GEF’s fastest-growing portfolio, multi-focal area (MFA) projects, has nearly tripled in funding since their launch, yet evidence on whether it achieves multiple environmental and socioeconomic benefits has lagged behind.

This evaluation, covering GEF-3 through GEF-6, applies mixed methods including portfolio analysis, geospatial data, and field visits to assess the extent to which MFA projects deliver global and local benefits.

Findings show that most completed MFA projects achieve positive environmental outcomes and broader adoption, with 77 percent rated moderately satisfactory or higher and 80 percent reporting benefits in targeted focal area combinations alongside socioeconomic gains. Integration across biodiversity, land degradation, and climate change priorities often enables synergies such as ecosystem restoration and reduced fuelwood use, while trade-offs between environmental and livelihood goals are mitigated through compensation, compromise, or value addition.

MFA projects support larger-scale interventions and foster cross-sector collaboration, but they also face high transaction costs, weak monitoring of synergies, and capacity gaps that constrain performance.

The report recommends identifying conditions appropriate for MFA design, streamlining monitoring to capture synergies and trade-offs, and developing shared guidance to maximize integration while managing costs.