PRESS BRIEFING BY CHAIRMAN OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY CHAIRMAN OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY

At a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon, Mohammed T. El-Ashry, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), said good policies and strong institutions were essential to the pursuit of environmentally sustainable development.

Speaking to correspondents shortly before the launching of GEF's newest book, titled Valuing the Global Environment: Actions and Investments for a Twenty-first Century, he said the world would have been a better place today if most of the recommendations at the Rio Summit six years ago had been implemented.

He said there were a number of key policy issues in Agenda 21 which had not been implemented by both the developed and developing countries, as well as international institutions. For the developing countries, those unfulfilled initiatives included reducing subsidies on fuel, water and fertilizer; alleviating poverty and improving livelihoods; empowering communities and grass-roots groups; and encouraging private entrepreneurs.

Continuing, he said they needed to also put in place an environmental framework for improving the domestic environment and integrating the global environment, based on commitments under such conventions as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

As for the developed countries, he said they had not reduced their emissions substantially. Kyoto was an initial step towards that effort. They were also committed to large-scale research and development of renewable energy or energy sources with zero emissions of carbon and facilitating the transfer of environmentally benign technologies to developing countries.

He said the developed countries were also expected to provide financial assistance to poor countries for poverty alleviation, especially those countries not benefiting from foreign direct investment, and relied heavily on development assistance for improving their social and economic conditions.

Turning to international institutions, he said they were committed to putting global environmental issues at the top of their programmes, as well as integrating those environmental concerns in their work.

Explaining the GEF's role, he said it was the principal financial mechanism for the global environment. Its resources had been replenished with $2.75 billion. The GEF had been working in 119 countries since 1991.

Regarding the new book, he said it contained some good news and some bad news. The good news was that governments, businesses and citizen groups were

making headway in finding solutions to global problems. The bad news was that those problems were even bigger than had been thought. The world now knew that one in eight plant species was on the edge of extinction; that the world was experiencing the warmest weather ever; that a new ozone hole was developing in the Arctic; that massive ice was melting; and that the Amazon was on fire. Clearly, global environmental problems were enormous, but they were not irreversible.

Expressing his gratitude to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil for writing the book's foreword, he also thanked its over two dozen guest essayists from more than 20 nations for sharing their personal insights on biodiversity, climate change, international water and ozone depletion. Today's briefing and related events in New York were the beginning of a global effort to put those issues everyone's on agenda.

He said it was important that policy makers and the public at large came to grips with the bad news and build on the good developments today. The success stories in the book reflected the innovations and hard work of millions of individuals and institutions worldwide over the last few decades.

Asked whether the $2.75 billion replenishment was actual money or a promise, he said the GEF was last replenished in 1994 with $2 billion. That was for the last four years. For the next four years, the GEF would have additional $2.75 billion available for programmes. The GEF total estimate at the Rio Summit was $125 billion for sustainable development as a whole. It was not just the global environment, but for unmet needs in sustainable development in all developing countries. The money was to come from various sources, including domestic resources, foreign assistance and from the private sector.

Asked if there was a willingness among global policy makers and business leaders to come together to fulfil their commitments, Mr. El-Ashry said the political will was not yet there to pursue sustainable development at the level that was required in order to reverse past trends. The commitment was not just money. Policies were important. A number of actions needed to be taken. Some things had been done, but much more needed to be done.

A correspondent wanted to know if the GEF was pleased with the results of projects it had funded so far. Mr. El-Ashry said the GEF had completed an independent evaluation of its projects over the past six years. Many of those projects had not yet been completed. So it was not possible yet to assess their full impact. The evaluators assessed certain elements of the projects, as well as the processes and procedures for getting them together with the countries involved, non-governmental organizations, the implementing agencies (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank).

Environment Facility Briefing - 3 - 30 April 1998

Continuing, he said a number of areas were identified during the evaluation that needed to be strengthened, particularly in terms of the amount of time it took from project conception to implementation. The bureaucracy needed to be simplified not just on the part of the GEF but on the part of governments themselves. The GEF was working on streamlining the project cycle so that it could be much more effective.

Still on the evaluation, he said coordination at the country level was also not satisfactory. One ministry did not know what the other was doing. Global environmental issues -- whether biodiversity, climate change or energy -- were related to the planning and development aspects of countries. So in-country coordination, as well as improving the level of information at the country level about the GEF and its processes, would be addressed.

Mr. El-Ashry said the GEF also hoped to tackle the issue of using funds effectively. It used its funds to attract other funds, particularly private- sector resources. Its $2 billion resource since 1994 had been used to leverage another $5 billion from other sources -- governments, international organizations and the private sector. It needed to increase the level of leveraging and the level of private-sector participation. Not much foreign direct investment was coming into the social and environmental sector. It needed to attract private sector funds in those areas.

Asked how the decisions of the Commission on Sustainable Development affected the GEF, he said the mandate of the Commission was to monitor progress towards sustainable development, particularly the flow of resources for sustainable development. In that respect, it could be said that the only resources available since the Rio Summit had been GEF funds. The GEF had a good working relationship with the Commission. Global environmental issues had always been addressed in the framework of sustainable development. They could not be isolated from the development efforts on the ground.

* *** *