Advice

International attention to opportunities in the blue economy is growing. But this increased attention is marked by diverse underlying assumptions and by inadequate attention to the important trade-offs and risks these investments often entail.

This paper looks at the experience of South–South cooperation (SSC) for knowledge exchange (KE) in the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and its Agencies, and in other institutions, to elucidate what has been learned and what challenges exist and, at the CEO’s request, to make recommendations for GEF-8 programming.

This paper synthesizes the main elements of STAP’s process-oriented advice. This advice provides eight enabling elements to help ensure the success of GEF investments. It highlights the eight enabling elements and illustrates how adopting them will “de-risk” project and programme design and increase the likelihood of delivering durable outcomes that contribute to transformational change.

This paper builds on the three circular economy reports STAP has produced to date. They will help the GEF plan, design, and implement future circular economy projects.

The GEF aims to facilitate enduring and transformative change that delivers global environmental benefits which are resilient to future shocks and stresses that may otherwise undermine them. Applying resilience thinking and a simple scenario-based approach to known future risks can help GEF investments produce more resilient outcomes.

A significant aspect of today's climate change degradation is linked to materials extraction, processing, use, and disposal. Hence, the circular economy offers an opportunity to tackle climate change and deliver other environmental and socioeconomic benefits by ensuring that focusing on maintaining resources in use for as long as possible, extracting the maximum value while in use, and recovering and recycling products and usable materials at the end of their serviceable life.

The GEF's chemicals and waste focal area's objectives are strongly interlinked with those of other focal areas. The production, use, and management of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mercury, ozone-depleting substances (ODS) are major drivers of biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation, and impact on international waters. Chemicals and waste are also interlinked with socio-economic issues, including human health, food security, poverty, gender equality, and economic improvements.

Over the last 6 months, STAP has reviewed what a science and technology perspective can contribute to the GEF’s thinking about replenishment for GEF-8.

A brief review of the latest science on global environmental change leads to two compelling conclusions. 

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) seeks to address the root causes and consequences of global environmental change by transforming markets and behaviors:  unsustainable practices and behaviors are at the heart of the drivers of global environmental change, and responding to these can help to transform systems.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are defined by IUCN as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits."

Technology critical elements (TCEs), including rare earth elements, the platinum group elements, and other relatively scarce metals, are essential for many emerging and green technologies, including renewable energy, energy security, energy storage, electronics, and urban development, and agriculture. However, the extraction of TCEs can have potentially harmful effects on ecosystems and human health when released into the environment. This STAP report provides a review of the benefits and the cost of TCEs and highlights solutions to managing their impacts.

This guidance note offers advice on the principles and practices that contribute to effective design and implementation of multi-stakeholder dialogue (MSD) to address GEF priorities. The primary emphasis is on the use of MSD processes to contribute to regional or global coalitions for transformational change that integrate private sector actors, including multinational corporations, industry associations and private financial institutions.

This Primer examines Earth observation technology, and makes recommendations on how this could be used by the GEF. An accompanying Technical Guide provides more detailed explanation of Earth observation principles, data sources and platforms, and case studies to illustrate how these data and tools can be used.

This paper explains what blockchain is and how blockchain could be used to deliver environmental benefits - particularly for the GEF. It also points out some of the challenges and barriers to using the technology and concludes with recommendations to the GEF.

• Novel Entities

This primer provides a synthesis of guidance specifically aimed at carrying out Theory of Change in processes in a GEF context. The primer provides a brief overview of the origin of Theory of Change; defines what is a Theory of Change; explains why developing and carrying out a Theory of Changes is necessary; describes when to do a Theory of Change; and, provides a succinct guide on how to do a Theory of Change.

In addition to the background document and primer, you will also find the presentation, Theory of Change, STAP Workshop for the GEF and Agencies, held in October 2020.