The First Ten Years – Growing
Pains or Inherent Flaws?
a report by environmental
defence and halifax initiative - August 2002
2. History, Governance, Operations
and Results
Contributions to the GEF are based on the size of a
country's economy using an agreed 'burden-sharing' formula.
As a result, the United States theoretically contributes
the most at 15 per cent followed by Japan (10 per cent)
and Germany (9 per cent). In practice, however, contributions
reflect political will more than agreed formulas.
By establishing the GEF prior to the 1992 Rio Earth
Summit, G7 governments were able to pre-empt multilateral
debate and seize the environmental agenda. Southern
governments had been expected to present alternative
"green funds" proposals in Rio. With the arrival
of the GEF, already established and with new and substantial
finance paid in, these more radical, yet unfunded, proposals
were sidelined.
Through the GEF, G7 governments were able to define
"global environmental problems" as they perceived
them and limit their financial responsibilities for
solving them. The G7 used an “incremental cost
principle” to define the limits of funding. The
GEF was to pay only for project costs that benefited
the global environment, not the local environment. Donor
governments view global environmental problems as technical
problems, solvable with technical fixes. The underlying
economic, social, political, and institutional causes
of environmental destruction are not examined at the
GEF (See Section 3).
Because they had no role in its establishment, the feelings
of Southern governments toward the GEF ranged from ambivalence
to hostility.
|
