4. Socioeconomic co-benefits

There is growing recognition that environmental protection is more effective and sustainable when it delivers tangible improvements in the lives of affected communities, especially the most vulnerable. As the GEF deepens its commitment to transformational change, enhancing and understanding these socioeconomic outcomes of its projects has become an important priority. Addressing global challenges such as biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation, and pollution requires integrated approaches that reflect the socioeconomic realities in which these issues unfold.

As used in this chapter, “socioeconomic co-benefits” refers to the additional positive outcomes of environmental interventions that go beyond their primary ecological goals. These may include improved livelihoods and incomes, better health and food security, employment opportunities, gender equality, market development, and enhanced access to services and capacities.

While the pursuit of co-benefits is not new to the GEF, there has been a recent strategic shift toward more systematically identifying, tracking, and leveraging these outcomes across the portfolio. The GEF has provided long-standing support for community-based initiatives, inclusive approaches, and the Small Grants Programme (SGP), all of which aim at socioeconomic benefits. The GEF-8 Programming Directions formalize this emphasis by promoting integrated solutions that address both environmental degradation and social vulnerability (GEF Secretariat 2022a).

Historically, GEF-funded projects have given limited attention to monitoring and assessing co-benefits during design and implementation. As a result, there is a risk that the full scope of results and impacts may be overlooked or undervalued by donors and partners. Tracking socioeconomic co-benefits is essential for project managers and stakeholders, as it helps identify which benefits are emerging, the constraints limiting their realization, and the distribution of these benefits across different groups. To address this gap, the GEF recently presented a paper to the Council on monitoring co-benefits (GEF 2024c), outlining a broader set of tools and approaches for assessing these outcomes. If systematically applied by lead and executing agencies, these tools could improve the measurement of co-benefits and offer a more comprehensive picture of the developmental impacts of GEF-funded interventions.

This chapter draws on a dedicated study by the GEF IEO to examine how socioeconomic co-benefits are being realized in practice, despite gaps in systematic monitoring (GEF IEO forthcoming-m). Using a novel methodology relying on geospatial analysis, the evaluation reviewed how GEF-funded projects have contributed to socioeconomic outcomes across a portfolio of 111 projects across 11 countries. To validate and contextualize the geospatial findings, the evaluation incorporated evidence from other IEO evaluations under GEF-8—including findings from strategic country cluster evaluations in drylands, the Lower Mekong region, and small island developing states (SIDS) in the Pacific and Caribbean—and conducted in-depth case studies in Chad, Mexico, and Nepal, covering 33 projects in total. These case studies enriched the analysis by providing qualitative insights from stakeholders, project sites, and communities. Together, these sources provide the evidence base for the chapter.