The Independent Advisory Panel has provided the following statement on the OPS8 report after being involved throughout its development, including through providing feedback on the draft approach paper, the draft briefing, and the draft final report, reviewing the 34 evaluations on which the comprehensive evaluation is based, and discussions with the IEO.
All members of the Panel endorse the IEO’s wide-ranging evaluation. The IEO has assessed the context and content of the GEF’s work carefully and has delivered a thorough report on retrospective and prospective aspects. We find the evaluative methodology and the analyses support the conclusions and recommendations. The report is built on a unique breadth and depth of insights into the workings of projects across multiple Agencies, allowing for learning and recommendations.
We strongly support the urgency expressed in the report and its implications for the GEF’s agenda. This calls for the GEF to lift performance beyond the success of individual projects towards transformational, systemwide impact and to make choices that take the GEF beyond how it has operated to date.
These are critical times. The gap between actions needed in the worsening state of the global environment, and actual country and global actions being taken, is widening. There is also a gap between financing needs for environmental protection and the resources that are being made available. This situation obliges countries and the global community to go beyond incremental efforts and seek far-reaching, transformational impact from investment and policy action. Now is the time to move beyond “business as usual.”
The GEF is well positioned for this task with its track record of capability, commitment to its mandate, and its unique business model of operating with and across a complementary group of Agencies.
The report’s conclusions and recommendations point the way forward. It confirms the very solid project outcomes of the portfolio. And it notes the GEF’s experience that success depends on selecting projects that are well designed, fostering deep country engagement and institutional ownership, and thus have a high likelihood of good performance and longevity of outcomes. These and other contributors to success—notably the strength of the partners’ commitment to cofinancing—are highlighted well in the report and should now be used by the GEF in developing new approaches to selectivity and scale.
The report includes compelling examples of projects that have managed to achieve reach and scale. These examples highlight the need to systematically engage a mix of local and external partners—including the private sector—to crowd in investment, innovation, knowledge, and learning. For the environmental, financial, and institutional shifts achieved to continue, such initiatives must be backed by adequate staffing and financing.
OPS8 highlights the potential for the GEF to create broader catalytic and multiplier effects through effective knowledge and learning in projects, programs, and across the portfolio.
Pursuing greater leverage and impact will require difficult choices and trade-offs, and OPS8 offers guidance for these and informs the evaluation of OPS9.
The GEF’s agenda is more relevant today than ever. In the challenging global conditions, adequate resourcing of the GEF is needed to deliver a high-impact agenda that goes beyond individual projects. This will not be easy. That is because, even though the social benefit of acting with urgency far outweighs the financial cost of acting, the dominance of short-term financial considerations holds back the adequate delivery of environmentally and socially critical programs. In our view, OPS8 confirms that with strong funding and engagement from its global constituency and its country and external collaborators, the GEF can make a decisive difference.
— Patricia Rogers, Stefan Schwager, Vinod Thomas, Hasan Tuluy, and Monika Weber-Fahr
