Africa Largest Beneficiary of GEF Funding, Official Discloses

African nations are leading recipients of financial support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a global fund dedicated to environmental action. Ulrich Apel, a Senior Environmental Specialist at GEF, revealed that the continent has secured approximately 30% of the facility's funding for sustainable environmental projects, surpassing Asia (18%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (15%).

Apel emphasized that the GEF actively programs all available funding, and Africa's significant share is due to its particular vulnerability to land degradation, desertification, and drought. These issues are central to discussions at the ongoing United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP17 in Mongolia. He stated that the accessibility of funds is not the primary problem, as GEF programs all its available resources.

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So, I don’t think the problem is necessarily the accessibility of funds, because we programme all the funding that we have available.

The disclosure coincided with intensified efforts at UNCCD COP17 to mobilize finance for land restoration and drought resilience. August 24th was designated as Finance Day, focusing on attracting public and private investment. The conference is placing special emphasis on rangelands, which cover over half the Earth's land surface but are significantly degraded. In response, governments, financial institutions, and businesses announced $1.3 billion in new and pipeline financing for land restoration and drought resilience across 23 countries.

Furthermore, the GEF announced the development of a new Drylands and Drought Management Integrated Program. This initiative, set to be implemented during the GEF-9 investment cycle from 2026 to 2030, aims to help countries proactively manage drought, bolster resilience in drylands, and mitigate growing risks to ecosystems, food security, water availability, livelihoods, and health. The program directly addresses requests from parties to the convention.

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First of all, we have programmes that cover all the available funding. We programme all of our available funding, and in fact, the African region is the largest beneficiary of our funding, having received about 30 per cent of the funds, followed by Asia with 18 per cent, and Latin America and the Caribbean with 15 per cent.