Evaluations

The GEF created the Small Grants Programme (SGP) in 1992 with the explicit aim of developing community-led and -owned strategies and technologies for reducing threats to the global environment—notably in connection with biodiversity loss, mitigating climate change, land degradation and protecting international waters, chemical and waste management - while addressing livelihood challenges.

Among the most prominent middle-income countries in terms of their population and GDP, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa together represent 19% of the global GDP. Over the last two decades these countries have become increasingly important global economic and geopolitical actors.

The GEF Independent Evaluation Office is collaborating with the Environmental Law Institute to assess GEF projects and programs in fragile and conflict-affected situations—in short, to determine whether and how GEF interventions are conflict-sensitive, and the implications thereof.

Knowledge is an important resource of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) that supports its strategic objectives to address global environmental concerns. Over the years, the GEF facilitated generation and sharing of knowledge through its projects and programs, as well as through its corporate strategies and initiatives.

The GEF medium-sized project (MSP) modality has provided an expedited mechanism for execution of smaller projects by simplifying processing steps together with review and approval procedures, thereby shortening the project cycle relative to GEF full-sized projects. MSPs were able to address the gap between the two funding mechanisms at the time—full-size projects and Small Grants Programme.

The GEF Annual Performance Report (APR) prepared by the GEF Independent Evaluation Office (GEF IEO) provides an overview of the performance of GEF activities and processes, key factors that may affect performance, and the quality of Monitoring and Evaluations systems (M&E).

The Professional Peer Review of the Evaluation Function is conducted in line with the Framework for Professional Peer Reviews of Evaluation Functions in Multilateral Organizations, and the Good Practice Standards of the Evaluation Co-operation Group.

The Independent Evaluation Office is undertaking a fourth study of the International Waters (IW) focal area, with the previous ones completed in 2002, 2005 and 2016. The 2020 IW focal area study features two special themes: fisheries and freshwater.

The Agency self-evaluation systems are expected to facilitate learning and accountability across the GEF partnership. However, factors such as policy framework, quality assurance arrangements, incentives for candor in reporting, harmonization of practices, information sharing arrangements, and adequacy of resources for self-evaluation may affect the extent to which these systems meet the needs of the GEF partnership.