Substantial climate funding for Global Environmental Facility

The Assembly of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) will be held on 25-26 May in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Before the assembly, over 30 GEF contributor countries pledged to add 4.25 million U.S. dollars to the fund over 2010-2014. Finland increased its share more than any other donor; by 80 percent from the previous replenishment. Finland's total contribution to the 5th replenishment will be 57.3 million euros.

The 5th replenishment is the largest in the GEF history, and it constitutes a 50 percent increase over GEF-4 levels. According to the GEF Secretariat's assessment, up to a half of the GEF total funding will be allocated to climate change mitigation on top of the 1.35 billion dollars earmarked for the cause.

This is the first significant funding decision made by the international community since the Copenhagen climate summit in December. According to Vice President of the World Bank Axel van Trotsenburg, who chaired the negotiations, the record replenishment is a testimony to the international donor community's commitment to the environmental agenda.

The record replenishment is all the more important given the GEF way of operating: it grants funding only to cover so called “incremental” costs, while other funding is provided by cooperation parties such as member states, organisations and private businesses. Therefore the total value of GEF funded climate work is far greater than the basic funding granted by the fund. In 1991-2010, the GEF has provided nearly 9 billion dollars in grants for more than 2.400 projects in over 165 countries to complement the other funding of 39 billion dollars in total.

Finland's share of GEF replenishment is a part of Finland's short-term climate financing obligation of 110 million euros in 2010-2012. The purpose is to fulfil the obligation as a new and gradually increasing allocation. In addition to contributions to the GEF and other multi-lateral funding programmes, Finland will increase the climate focus in its bilateral development cooperation.

The Finnish delegation at the GEF Assembly includes Head of Unit Tiina Jortikka-Laitinen, Senior Research Officer Folke Sundman and Second Secretary Anna-Maria Salomaa from the Foreign Ministry, and Director, EU Cooperation Ann-Britt Ylinen from the Ministry of the Environment.

Further information: Folke Sundman, tel. +358 40 569 6630, [email protected], Johanna Pietikäinen, tel. +358 40 480 6064, [email protected]