Avril Benchimol

Global Environment Facility

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the largest multilateral trust fund focused on enabling developing countries to invest in nature, and supports the implementation of major international environmental conventions including on biodiversity, climate change, chemicals, and desertification. The GEF was established on eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, to help tackle our planet's most pressing environmental problems. Since then, the GEF has provided over $114 billion in grants and mobilized in excess of $70 billion in additional financing for more than 4,000 projects. The GEF has become an international partnership of 184 countries, international institutions, civil society organizations, and private sector to address global environmental issues.