Limited Global Environment Facility (GEF) finance for nature reaching the local level

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Introduction

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a major multilateral funder delivering nature finance to developing countries to protect biodiversity.

Nature finance is a major current topic in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and other international policy spaces. In February 2025, parties to the CBD agreed a new roadmap to mobilise biodiversity finance1 to 2030 and beyond. The GEF is critical to ensuring that nature finance is delivered at scale and that it meets the needs of Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and local communities (LCs), who are custodians of significant biodiversity across their lands and territories.

This briefing presents findings from recent research into the amount of GEF nature finance reaching Indigenous Peoples and local communities. It highlights that not enough GEF finance is reaching the local level where it is most needed and that it is not always being delivered in ways that support local priorities.

It offers recommendations to the GEF and other funders on ways to deliver better quality nature finance in line with local priorities, with the best possible outcomes for biodiversity.

Methodology

From 2023 to 2025, IIED and partners carried out research into the amount and quality of GEF biodiversity finance reaching IPs and LCs, including IP and LC women’s organisations specifically. We analyzed publicly available data on the GEF project database and interviewed recipients of GEF funding in Antigua, Kenya, Malawi, the Philippines and Vanuatu. We included projects from the GEF Trust Fund’s recent replenishment phases (GEF-5, GEF-6 and GEF-7), as well as projects from the GEF Small Grants Program (SGP) and the GEF-7 Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI). This briefing highlights the main findings and recommendations from this research, which reflect known issues previously highlighted by IPs and LCs.

Key findings

Limited funding reaching IPs and LCs and IP and LC women’s organisations: Quantitative analysis shows that 24% of GEF-6 and 30% of GEF-7 funds were “targeted” at IPs and LCs, but actual direct disbursements were minimal. Interview findings indicate few local actors received funding, and where they did, amounts were negligible. Notably, no IP or LC women’s organisations were identified as recipients. The SGP and ICI were more effective at channelling funding to IPs and LCs. Recipients reported receiving much higher amounts — US$50,000 on average per small grants project.

Persistent information gaps and limited transparency: There is no current indicator within the GEF reporting framework that obligates implementing agencies (IAs) to report on how much money reaches IPs and LCs directly, or women and girls directly. Gender-related indicators are inconsistently used, and post-implementation reporting is weak. It was difficult even to track who the local partners are within GEF projects. Proposal documents often state that Indigenous organisations will be partners but rarely name them.

Ongoing access issues and short‑term funding: Overall, interviewees reported that the GEF process is often inaccessible to local groups. Few IP and LC organisations understand how the GEF works, very little information about GEF funding is in the public domain and many IP organisations don’t know how to access funds from the GEF or its IAs. Many funding recipients reported problems accessing funding, largely due to funding always flowing through IAs and country operational focal points (OFPs) and not directly from the GEF itself.

Funding not in line with IP and LC’s own priorities: Local actors are often brought into pre-approved projects and have minimal influence over priorities, partners, or implementation design. Funding typically reflects donor goals more than community needs, limiting local ownership and effectiveness.

Limited support for capacity building or project preparation: Support for building institutional capacity or preparing project proposals is scarce. Application processes are complex, often inaccessible due to language and technical barriers.

The GEF Small Grants Programme provides important lessons: Several interviewees highlighted positive examples of easier application processes, streamlined reporting, budget flexibility and a broad funding scope from the SGP. And while they also highlighted challenges, the SGP is a working example of how GEF funding can be delivered in business unusual ways.

Recommendations

1. Scale SGP practices: GEF should adopt and expand lessons from the SGP across its full funding portfolio. This should be done in close collaboration with the Indigenous Peoples Advisory Group10 and be informed by IPs and LCs currently accessing GEF funding to ensure changes are grounded in real experiences.
2. Improve transparency: GEF should improve data transparency and publish clear monitoring and reporting indicators to track who the partners are, how much money goes to each partner, and how much is actually reaching IPs and LCs, including IP and LC women’s organisations.
3. Simplify access: GEF should radically improve access for local actors and simplify its funding model, reducing reliance on intermediaries and country focal points — instead improving access for IPs and LCs, sharing information directly with them, streamlining processes and, where intermediaries are required, allowing local actors to choose them.
4. Support capacity: GEF funding should be long-term, patient, predictable, inclusive and flexible enough to support institutional capacity building for local organisations and help them develop the skills they need to influence and access funding. GEF should actively factor in project preparation support during early project development phases to give local organisations the best possible chance to design programmes and receive funding.
5. Endorse inclusive principles: GEF should endorse the principles for locally led adaptation and the principles for inclusive, gender-responsive and locally led biodiversity action and commit to working with peer funds to increase the volume of funding reaching the local level to support local priorities and needs.

Suggested citation

Sorsby, N., Holland, E., Waldron, A., Degawan, M., Karmushu, R., Spencer, R., Chowdury, M., Mwale, B. and Huber, C. (2025). Limited GEF finance for nature reaching the local level. IIED, London.