Daniel Buckley

Daniel Buckley is a Senior Operations Officer supporting the development and maintenance of a robust policy and operational framework to drive the Global Environment Facility investment pipeline and portfolio. Dan joined the GEF after two decades working in academic, government, and multilateral institutions, as well as in the private sector, on critical natural resource management, and climate change issues affecting sustainable development.

Most recently, Dan served as the Senior Climate Policy Advisor at the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), where he developed the agency’s first climate finance investment plan and managed its implementation in alignment with an ambitious 2040 net zero target. He also stood up processes to identify, assess, and manage physical and transition risks to the DFC portfolio and mainstreamed those processes into the agency’s E&S and credit risk frameworks.

Prior to DFC, he worked with Green Climate Fund in Korea, Global Green Growth Institute in Vietnam, and UNDP, World Bank, and IDB in more than 40 countries, supporting countries with policy and governance advice, technical assistance, and investment structuring in pursuit of national climate and development priorities. Dan has worked in the international environmental sector since in 2004, when he served as the Program Associate for the Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and Policy at San Diego State University, a binational think tank that applied scientific research to derive policy solutions to the unique environmental issues posed by the development of the US-Mexico border zone. This experience influenced him to pursue a career at the intersection of political economy and the natural environment.

Dan earned a BA in government and legal studies from Bowdoin College and an MPA in environmental policy from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.