WORLD NEWS | FAO’s Global Environment Facility approves 26 projects worth $174.7 million

Rome [Italy]27 June (ANI/WAM): Momentum is building to address environmental issues by addressing how food and fiber are produced, with the Global Environment Facility having approved 26 projects led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

“To achieve the 2030 Agenda, we need a healthy planet and healthy people. These projects will help countries conserve and use natural resources sustainably, while providing nutritious diets and green and climate-resilient livelihoods, and contribute to the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’ FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo said she welcomed the approval of the projects at the 64th GEF Council meeting in Brasilia on 26 June .

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These projects received a total of $174.7 million in GEF funding and $1.2 billion in co-financing. Through these new projects, the FAO-GEF partnership will help countries access more than US$1.4 billion in financing and leverage more than US$9 billion in co-financing to transform agri-food systems to address biodiversity loss, Scenarios for climate change, ecosystem degradation and pollution issues. Land, freshwater and ocean, Semedo said.

The 26 projects will support countries to establish or improve the management of nearly 17.9 million hectares of terrestrial and marine protected areas, improve the sustainability of fisheries, forestry and agricultural practices in more than 27 million hectares of landscapes and seascapes, and restore 820,000 hectares of nature reserves . ecosystems, reducing 275 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, improving cooperative management of 4 shared water ecosystems, and benefiting 1.6 million women and men.

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Six projects in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nicaragua, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Venezuela are part of an integrated critical forest biome program that will support the protection and conservation of globally important forests and improve the management of forest resources.

The five projects in Cape Verde, Cuba, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago and Vanuatu are part of the Blue and Green Islands integrated plan that will address the interdependence of the environmental and economic systems of SIDS .

Four projects in Côte d’Ivoire, Nepal, Sao Tome and Principe, and Viet Nam are part of a comprehensive plan for ecosystem restoration.

A project in Costa Rica will join the Net Zero Nature Positive Accelerator Comprehensive Programme.

A project in Pakistan will join the Comprehensive Program to Eliminate Hazardous Chemicals from Supply Chains and use circular bioeconomy principles to convert banana waste into a sustainable alternative to cotton.

With a portfolio now in excess of US$1.3 billion, FAO’s GEF assists more than 120 countries with projects that respond to local priorities, achieve global environmental benefits and advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). (ANI/WAM)

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