ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the overall performance results of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) portfolio of projects and programs and the various factors driving these results, considering the organization's five focal areas of climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, chemicals and waste, and international waters, and its multifocal and integrated projects. Of the 1,706 projects completed since the GEF's inception, 80 percent have had outcomes in the satisfactory range. These ratings confirm almost 30 years of GEF project success in steadily delivering expected short- to medium-term results. The chapter looks deeper into the results by exploring performance ratings by region and considering the attributes affecting performance: project design, quality of implementation and execution, and cofinancing. It also evaluates the impacts of GEF policies, including those on gender and indigenous peoples.
The chapter then explores the longer term impacts and sustainability of GEF interventions and the channels through which these are achieved. Central to success for large-scale, long-term impacts is the concept of broader adoption, which occurs when governments and other stakeholders adopt, expand, and build on GEF interventions, based on initial results.
