Press Release: The 6th GEF Biennial International Waters Conference - GEF and the Future

Plenty Done. Plenty to Do.
The International Waters Conference Comes to an End

Dubrovnik, Croatia, October 2011 – There’s plenty to be proud of and plenty left to do.

That was the message sent from the Global Environment Facility’s project managers, partners, and leaders on the final day of the 6th GEF Biennial International Waters Conference.

“The past has been valuable and will continue to be as we look to the future,” said Denise Forrest, project coordinator for the Caribbean Regional Fund for Wastewater Management.

Forrest made her comments during a panel discussion, the final event of the four-day conference that gathered about 300 participants from 80 countries. The conference stakeholders involved in the 71 active projects that make up GEF’s current International Waters portfolio.

The theme for the conference was Raising the Bar: 20 years of GEF International Waters Transboundary Results. The panel was charged with discussing GEF’s results and achievements and suggesting improvements for the future.

“Innovation is related to taking the risk,” said Ivan Zavadsky of the GEF Secretariat, who moderated the session. “We think we have this mandate in the GEF.”

The session started out with a video presentation with comments from project managers. From the panel, participants pointed out some of GEF’s strengths throughout its history.

For Yannick Glemarec, the executive coordinator with United Nations Development Programme, GEF’s ability to leverage its investments into much larger financial contributions stood out as a major achievement.

“This is truly unique and unfortunately it is not a story that is well known,” he said.

From a global view, Mark Smith of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature said that after 20 years of work, GEF had changed the face of the planet.

But for him, there was a burning question: Was GEF working fast enough?

“It is not doing it fast enough,” he said. “How do we use the kinds of networks and relationships and activities and processes that GEF is so good at building as a way of tripling the rate of progress?”
The comment led to the discussion of GEF’s future path with suggestions for ways the independent financial organization can be even better in the next 20 years.

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