During the GEF-5 replenishment negotiations it was agreed that, within the framework of paragraph 28 of the GEF Instrument, the GEF partnership needs to be broadened further to enhance country ownership in the GEF operation and to provide recipient countries greater choice in terms of agencies with which they work. At the request of GEF Council, GEF Independent Evaluation Office (GEF IEO) conducted a Process Evaluation of the Expansion of the GEF Partnership to assess the design, transparency and efficiency related aspects of the accreditation process. The evaluation was presented to the Council during its June 2015 meeting within the framework of GEF IEO's Semi Annual Evaluation Report (SAER). The Council acknowledged the emerging lessons from the accreditation pilot and requested the Secretariat to take them into account in preparing proposals regarding possible directions on accreditation.
As a response to the Council's request, the Secretariat prepared Future Directions on Accreditation (GEF/C.49/04/Rev.01) and presented it to the GEF Council at its October 2015 meeting. After reviewing the paper, the GEF Council requested the IEO to "conduct a survey across GEF Partner Agencies and recipient countries on the current structure of the GEF Partnership, and make recommendations based on the results of this survey to feed into the planned review of the health of the GEF Partnership as part of the Sixth Overall Performance Study of the GEF (OPS6)." The Council requested the GEF IEO to present a preliminary analysis of the survey in its June 2016 meeting.
The GEF IEO will undertake the evaluation in two phases. During the first phase a preliminary analysis based on the survey of GEF Partner Agencies and of key stakeholders in recipient countries will be prepared. The analysis will be shared with the GEF Council during its June 2016 meeting. The second phase would involve more in-depth analysis based on information from multiple sources, including the survey data sets, interviews of the key stakeholders, and additional information on emerging GEF project portfolio and results of completed projects.
Overall the evaluation will seek to answer following questions:
- To what extent does the structure of the GEF partnership enable the generation of global environmental benefits and promote country ownership?
- To what extent are the Partner Agencies adding value to the GEF partnership in terms of the services they provide and the countries that they cover?
- What are the factors that enable or restrain GEF Partner Agencies in meeting the expectations of key stakeholders?
- What have been the results of expansion of the GEF partnership in terms of coverage, competition, systemic efficiency, inclusion and engagement within partnership?