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The first GEF Knowledge Exchange for Policymakers was launched in Costa Rica this week. Ministers and representatives from Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Kenya, Senegal, and Zimbabwe saw first-hand how Costa Rica has effectively leveraged GEF resources, partnerships, and policies to transform the country’s ecosystems while improving lives of local communities.

The government of Côte d’Ivoire announced today at the UN Climate COP29 in Baku a wide range of initiatives to catalyze climate financing in the country.

Banco is the epicenter of ambitious efforts to protect a rich pocket of biodiversity. Across its 600 hectares of primary forests, park residents include nearly 100 rare or endangered species, seven of which are only known in Cote d’Ivoire. The park holds significant spiritual, recreational, scientific, and educational value. It also supplies around 40 percent of the city’s drinking water needs. Yet Banco is also under pressure from a growing urban population, air pollution and underdeveloped infrastructure.

Mangroves can withstand soil and water conditions that would kill most plants, and yet these hardiest of tropical forests are vanishing from the Earth so quickly that every effort to protect them is of value – both locally and globally. This is because mangroves have an outsized environmental and economic impact wherever they grow. They protect against coastal erosion, help with flood control, act as carbon sinks, and are unique ecosystems that harbor a wealth of fish, insect, bird, and reptile species.

Under the seventh GEF replenishment, GEF-7, Impact Programs (IPs) on Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR); Sustainable Forest Management (SFM); and Sustainable Cities are being developed to address the drivers of environmental degradation, and to support transformational change in these key systems.

Alimata B. Kone is Permanent Secretary of the Côte d’Ivoire GEF National Commission and serves as the country’s GEF Operational Focal Point. In an interview, she reflected on Côte d’Ivoire engagement with the Global Environment Facility as both a donor and a recipient country and shared how her background in economics has been useful in the field of environmental action. What are the main environmental issues of concern to Côte d’Ivoire?

People are already consuming at a rate faster than the planet can replenish. Yet the world’s population is expected to grow from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050. This will considerably increase demand for energy, transport, buildings and food.