Written by journalist Danylo Aleksandrov

During Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly 186 countries pledged to allocate $3.9 billion to various projects linked to the protection of environment over the next 4 years.

The news came from the Global Environment Facility Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. There, representatives from 186 countries have gathered to discuss the fund’s priorities for its 9th replenishment cycle, which covers the 2026-2030 period.

The funding which was approved today will be used to pay for different projects around the world. This will allow 144 countries where these projects are underway to continue reaching the environment protection goals, such as preserving the biodiversity, managing climate, protecting and restoring the nature etc. Aside from financial questions, the Assembly also introduced new mechanisms with the aim of lessening the bureaucracy and giving the recipient countries faster access to the funds.

35% at least will be given to the least developed nations as well as the island developing ones, as they are among the countries most prone to environmental risks such as the rising sea level and cataclysms. Additional 20% will be directed towards supporting initiatives by indigenous people as well as local communities.

GEF Assembly happens as the environmental issues become more numerous as less predictable. As a result, a number of nations are facing harder problems which require more financial resources and infrastructure, with more and more people living in regions prone to those and related risks. Hosting of the Assembly in Samarkand is symbolic, as it is estimated by the World Bank that in various areas of Central Asia around 37 million people are experiencing severe water scarcity.

Global Environment Facility (GEF) was created in 1991 with the goal of collecting financial resources for environmental initiatives such as the Paris Agreement on climate change. Currently GEF supports around 2,300 active projects and programmes.