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The GEF provides financial resources for developing countries and countries with economies in transition to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The goal of the GEF-8 (2022-2026) biodiversity focal area strategy is globally significant biodiversity conserved, sustainably used, and restored. To achieve this goal, GEF-8 investments will focus on three main objectives:

Building on the GEF-6 phase, the Sustainable Cities Impact Program in GEF-7 (2018-2022), under its brand name UrbanShift, advances the integrated approach of urban planning and implementation. The program brings together global, national, and local stakeholders to work towards a common vision of sustainable, low carbon, inclusive, gender sensitive, and resilient development, and is supporting 23 cities in nine countries.

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.

You may be aware that food plays an important role in human health. Did you know it is also critical to the health of our planet? Food systems are major drivers of global forest and biodiversity loss, land and soil degradation, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.

A group of leading experts and scientists convened by the Global Environment Facility has issued a white paper on the nexus between emerging infectious diseases and environmental degradation aimed at informing international efforts to build back better from COVID-19. The experts’ report, published ahead the 59th GEF Council, explores ways protecting and conserving nature can address the current crisis and prevent future outbreaks, and proposes new avenues for investment and cooperation to meet these goals.

The Global Environment Facility’s governing body will focus in its upcoming Council meetings on ways to assist developing countries emerge stronger from the coronavirus pandemic that has underlined how important it is for strains on nature from human activity to be addressed.

Cities are at the heart of the pandemic impact and response, and city leaders managing through the COVID-19 crisis have demonstrated commitment to integration, innovation, and partnership. GEF Cities Lead Aloke Barnwal makes the case that this approach will be critical to the future sustainability of cities, and argues for city-level recovery strategies that address the root causes of environmental degradation.

On October 16 every year, we celebrate World Food Day to highlight the enduring vision of a world free from hunger and malnutrition. This year, we face the unprecedented crisis of COVID-19, which threatens food security and human health and may push another 130 million people into hunger by the end of the year. The COVID-19 pandemic spotlights the fragility of our food systems caused, in part, by the fractures in the environmental systems underlying them, including biodiversity loss, deforestation, land and water degradation, and climate change.