FAO.org

Q&A with Jeff Griffin, Senior Coordinator of the FAO GEF Unit

Fresh from attending the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council meeting in Washington, D.C. with Mr Gustavo Merino, Director, Investment Centre, Jeff Griffin, Senior Coordinator of the FAO GEF Unit, spoke about how GEF is more aligned with FAO's strategic goals than ever before.

What was the outcome of the June GEF Council?

Just to give you a little background, these meetings are held twice a year and it's where project ideas are approved for funding. The GEF is organized in four-year phases − GEF 1, GEF 2 and so on − and each phase has its own strategic programme, which is redesigned or tweaked every four years. We are now in GEF 6.

In June, the Council approved over USD 700 million worth of projects and programmes − the largest programme in GEF history. FAO was able to secure approximately USD 60 million worth of funding. Over half of this sum, USD 33.7 million, is allocated to a major coastal fisheries initiative. FAO will be the lead agency, working with Conservation International, UNDP, UNEP and the World Bank, to help introduce more sustainable fishery management practices that can better conserve biodiversity, while complementing existing fishery management programmes.

This new GEF 6 is moving more toward sustainable development − food security and nutrition, resilience, sustainable agriculture − while also focusing on global environmental benefits. And that's good news for FAO because it means GEF's strategic priorities are more aligned with FAO's strategic objectives than ever before. For example, the GEF wants to fund climate-smart agriculture because it can help mitigate climate change but also because, when properly done, it can improve farmers' productivity. 

At the end of the day, these GEF-funded environmental projects are about people. The focus may be on conserving biodiversity or improving land management, but really what you're talking about is helping people do things differently. And that means capacity building and helping people develop different types of livelihoods and adopt new practices. GEF projects provide plenty of space for things like South-South Cooperation, resilience and decent rural employment. Sustainable tourism in rural areas, for example, leads to improved rural livelihoods.

Tell us about the environmental standards and what they mean for FAO?

Each agency that works with GEF must meet certain minimum standards. The key ones are environmental and social safeguards, gender and fiduciary standards. When GEF first assessed the agencies it worked with, FAO didn't have the required environmental and social safeguard standards in place. FAO’s Deputy Director General, Natural Resources led an organization-wide effort last year to develop these standards, with strong support from the Investment Centre and the GEF Unit. The efforts paid off and FAO’s standards have now been approved by the GEF Council. This was a milestone for FAO.

Of course, now we have to demonstrate that they are being implemented. This is going to change the way the Organization works. FAO set up a new environment and social safeguards unit, which will be responsible for training staff on how to apply these standards and document that they are being applied. Another positive offshoot, is that by having GEF's recognition FAO can also apply to become an accredited agency for the Green Climate Fund.*

How would you characterize the FAO-GEF programme - is it still in its infancy or sprinting?  

The growth in our GEF work has been phenomenal. Our portfolio has gone from zero in 2006 to USD 450 million now. We've doubled the size of our team in the past year. I'd say we're still in the early stages of developing our capacity. We're not crawling, but were not sprinting either. We want to improve and increase our capacity as quickly as possible and in the most cost-effective way. We decided the best way would be to mainstream our project work into the Investment Centre's Services. We're still sorting out the details, but the service chiefs will become much more involved and responsible for projects in their regions. We'll get four times the management capacity that way.

What's next?

I see GEF continuing to be one of the most important resource partners for FAO. It was the largest donor to FAO in the first quarter of this year and will no doubt continue to be in the top five. I see even closer strategic harmonization between FAO's work and GEF's work. GEF, like FAO, is breaking down silos, eliminating their programmatic silos of biodiversity, climate change, land degradation and developing new integrated approaches.  This is similar to what FAO is doing through its SOs – seeking to integrate its work. These trends are very positive for our collaboration with GEF.

It's an exciting time to be involved in this type of work in FAO, helping people improve their lives while improving the environment. There's tremendous growth and tremendous opportunities. But with that come tremendous challenges. One key challenge is to become more efficient in developing and submitting projects to GEF. There's a time limit and we can't let these things drag on for months and months because GEF will cancel these projects if not submitted on time.

We also have an opportunity to become more strategic. Rather than just taking on projects as they come, we can develop our own strategic programmes that fully support FAO's Strategic Framework and also tap into GEF's key thematic areas, like climate-smart agriculture, blue growth, agrobiodiversity conservation and chemicals. Pursuing these and other strategic areas will help us better focus our efforts, manage the knowledge generated and achieve more economies of scale.

* The Green Climate Fund is a fund within the framework of the UNFCCC to assist the developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change.