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LATIN AMERICA: Governments Call for Greater Voice in Environmental Funding

Danilo Valladares

PUNTA DEL ESTE, Uruguay, May 25 2010 (IPS) - “There should be a mechanism for recipient countries to help bring about a more balanced distribution of GEF funds,” Cuban delegate Jorge Luis Fernández told IPS after a forum Tuesday on how to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of the Global Environment Facility.

Fernández and other representatives of Latin American governments taking part in the Fourth GEF Assembly Monday through Friday in the Uruguayan resort town of Punta del Este on the Atlantic coast called for a greater voice in the GEF’s decision-making bodies.

The Cuban delegate said that “today the allocation of funds is biased in favour of promoting and facilitating the complementation of the interests of rich countries, while the solutions to our problems in the areas of poverty and education are not covered by the funds made available by the GEF.”

The GEF, which was created in 1991 by the World Bank and is now made up of 181 countries, is the world’s largest funder of projects to improve the global environment.

At the current assembly, held for the first time in Latin America, donor countries have pledged 4.25 billion dollars to finance GEF activities over the next four years, 52 percent more than the total promised in the last replenishment of funds in 2006.

Fernández said the GEF Assembly, which meets every three or four years, should be given greater influence, since all of the member countries are represented, and that the Council, which reaches concrete decisions by consensus and meets twice a year, besides virtual gatherings, should be given less power.

In the Assembly, “a larger number of countries are represented individually and we are in a better position to negotiate, while we are under-represented on the Council,” said the Cuban representative.

In the 32-seat Council, 16 are reserved for developing countries, 14 for donor countries and two for nations with economies in transition, even though the majority of the GEF member countries are developing nations.

“We believe we should work together in the GEF, not only from the perspective of the donor countries, which up to now has prevailed in all of the restructurings and rules on its functioning,” Fernández said.

Although one of the GEF’s flagship initiatives is the Small Grants Programme (SGP), implemented by a network of more than 400 civil society organisations, it represents less than one percent of the GEF budget.

“The SGP is the best GEF programme, but it receives the least money, although it is aimed at resolving people’s structural problems,” said Fernández. “That is one of the reasons that there is no balance between donors and recipients.”

Guatemalan Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Enma Díaz told IPS that if recipient countries had a greater voice in the GEF’s decision-making processes, more funds would be distributed to programmes that benefit them.

Greater influence would allow initiatives like the SGP to be expanded in terms of funding and coverage, she said.

“It’s a mutually beneficial relationship,” said Díaz. “Donors require good management on the part of the countries, and the governments’ area of activity is the national territory. A symbiosis between recipients and donors will bring about better management.”

Jorge Rucks, the head of Uruguay’s environmental agency, DINAMA, told IPS that it is important to find mechanisms to allow countries to have greater input, and that the Assembly is the most participative and open place to do that within the GEF.

The official complained about the limited participation by recipient countries, despite the fact that they will endure the severest effects of climate change caused mainly by industrialised countries. “And we (the recipients) have to find a way to cope, through adaptation strategies,” he said.

Enrique Maruri, the delegate of Colombia’s Foreign Ministry, said it should be recipient nations, not donor countries, that design the projects. “We must make the projects our own,” he said.

The director of the UNESCO Regional Office of Science for Latin America and the Caribbean, Jorge Grandi, said the sense that each nation is responsible for and in charge of the projects is key to the functioning of any fund.

The UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) official underlined the opportunity to debate these needs in Punta del Este.

The calls for a greater voice expressed by Latin American governments came on top of Monday’s demands by civil society organisations for more funds and less red tape.