Yasmine Fouad, Egypt's Environment Minister, has discussed with Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), ways to improve biodiversity funding mobilization and the GEF's role as a primary funding mechanism for the three Rio Conventions considering its internal reform process. This came on the sidelines of Fouad's participation in the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) in Colombia. The Minister stressed that building the global funding system needs to change, especially in regard to supporting developing countries and development. "A country like Costa Rica receives little funding despite its richness in biodiversity and promising opportunities for economic and social growth," she explained. Fouad pointed out that Egypt also fulfils its international environmental obligations despite the burden on its economic system. The Minister of Environment noted that during her meeting with the African group, the role of the GEF was emphasized as a funding mechanism that manages the financial resources provided by developed countries with a reliable system, as it works on various environmental conventions such as the three Rio Conventions and water and chemicals, although there are funding mechanisms dedicated to specific conventions. She expressed her expectation that the COP16 Biodiversity Conference will issue a decision to evaluate the Global Environment Facility as a financing mechanism within the next two years. The Minister of Environment also discussed the possibility of supporting the role of the Global Environment Facility in the Kunming Biodiversity Fund as a financing mechanism to provide funding to developing countries to implement the global biodiversity framework, especially since Egypt is a member of the Fund's Board of Directors. The CEO of the Global Environment Facility confirmed that the facility is currently going through a multi-faceted review phase, reforms, and evaluation in various aspects, whether the funding limits or the capabilities of the executive agencies and accredited institutions, as well as the governing framework of the facility and the new biodiversity model. He noted that countries requested the evaluation of the facility at the previous Biodiversity Conference in Montreal COP15, and the results of this evaluation were presented last week, where it showed that most countries agreed that the facility is carrying out its mission well. Rodriguez also highlighted the importance of reporting mechanisms in achieving transparency, including the mechanism for reporting on biodiversity financing, explaining the importance of having a clear and reliable way for countries to report on financing, including the Biofin report, the new version of which was issued in 2024, and Egypt was at the forefront of the countries preparing it. He further expressed his aspiration to come up with a decision to allocate a percentage of funding sources to the GEF, explaining that $2.4 billion has been allocated to biodiversity in the facility since the Montreal Conference in 2022.
