Strategic Country Cluster Evaluation of the Least Developed Countries

Least developed countries (LDCs) face severe environmental challenges exacerbated by climate change. Most common are deforestation and land degradation, biodiversity loss, and threats to freshwater and marine environments. They also face water-related challenges—including declining water quality, threats to marine resources, coastal and coral reef degradation, and threats to inland water resources. LDCs that are small island developing states (SIDS) face further problems with sea level rise, waste management, and increased effects of natural disasters. A quarter of the people in LDCs live on severely degraded land. Most are trying to feed their families by cultivating land that produces far less than it once did. These environmental issues are exacerbated by climate change and non-climate challenges, including socioeconomic pressures, poor policy, and lack of enforcement of regulations.

For more than 25 years, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has provided funding to address LDCs’ diverse environmental challenges on issues such as adaptation to climate change, unsustainable practices in the agriculture sector, land use change and habitat restoration, overexploitation of marine fisheries, as well as environmentally sound management and disposal of many persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and chemicals. To date, the GEF has invested $4.68 billion, accompanied by $25.81 billion in cofinancing through 1,435 national and regional projects in LDCs. The GEF Trust Fund covered 68 percent of the funding; the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) accounted for 29 percent of total funding.

Given the GEF’s priority in addressing environmental constraints in LDCs through increased allocations, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) conducted an in-depth review of the LDC portfolio of projects using a strategic country cluster evaluation (SCCE) approach. The overarching objectives of the evaluation were to (1) deepen understanding of the determinants of sustainable outcomes from GEF support in the LDCs, and (2) assess the relevance and performance of GEF support toward LDCs’ main environmental challenges from the countries’ perspective. This evaluation assessed the relevance, performance, and sustainability of GEF interventions based on a desk review of the GEF project portfolio in 47 LDCs from GEF-4 through GEF-6, and on 12 in-depth country case studies.