Environmental projects benefit from the geospatial information, with both targeting and impact evaluation activities able to take advantage of a wide variety of global datasets that examine land cover change, vegetative density, and biodiversity.

The regional evaluation networks ReLAC, REDLACME and the global association of evaluators IDEAS organized a Joint Conference on Evaluation for the Sustainable Development Goals. The conference had a special emphasis on transforming life through global and regional partnerships, with an emphasis on Latin America and the Caribbean. The conference discussed and made progress on evaluation approaches, methodologies, institutional frameworks and learning from monitoring and evaluation evidence.

On November 29th the GEF Independent Evaluation Office presented the Semi-Annual Evaluation Report (SAER) which included all recommendations listed in the Draft Final Report of the Sixth Comprehensive Evaluation of the GEF. Listed bellow are all documents, informational documents and presentations

Staff members of the GEF Independent Evaluation Office participated in various sessions at the American Evaluation Association (AEA) Conference in early November. See information below:

Gender, M&E and Environmental Programming in Climate Finance Institutions - Learning What Works and How (Session #2773)
GEF IEO Presenters: Dennis Bours, Evaluation Officer; Juha I Uitto, Director
Wednesday, November 8 from 6:15 pm -7:15 pm
View Presentation

The IEPPEC Conference was held in Bangkok, Thailand from November 1-2, 2017.

• November 1st: Juha Uitto, Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the GEF, took part in panel soapbox session on the Sixth Comprehensive Evaluation of the GEF (OPS6)
• November 2nd: 7Uitto also participated in the session on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Policies, Indicators, and Evaluations

The UNDP IEO and the Regional Bureau for Europe and CIS co-hosted with the Government of Turkey, the 2017 NEC Conference in Istanbul from 16 to 20 October 2017. The theme of the Conference was People, Planet and Progress in the SDG Era.

The evaluation department of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, together with the evaluation units of the Global Environment Facility, the United Nation Environment Programme and the Green Climate Fund, in collaboration with the secretariat for the Government of Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative, organized an international learning event on evaluating international forest initiatives with particula

At its 51^st meeting in October 2016, the GEF Council requested the Trustee, in cooperation with the Secretariat, to initiate discussions on the 7^th replenishment of resources of the GEF Trust Fund (GEF-7).The 2^nd replenishment meeting provided an opportunity for Contributing Participants to review GEF performance and evaluate progress, assess future funding needs, and agree on a financing framework.

On September 8, 2017 from 11:30-12:30 pm (Balcony E), Anupam Anand and Geeta Batra of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility (GEFIEO), led a session on Innovations in evaluating the impact of environmental interventions for the MERL Tech DC Conference. The session focused on experiences from the GEFIEO on using innovative technology and tools, machine learning, geospaital and econometric methods.

The 19^th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) takes places in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China. Juha I. Uitto, Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the GEF, presented findings of the recently completed GEF Land Degradation Focal Area Study and shared innovative approaches to assessing impacts in GEF land degradation projects.