November 2016: The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has published a review of biodiversity mainstreaming efforts, including a review of the final evaluations of completed mainstreaming projects, aiming to identify best practices and lessons learned.

Titled ‘Biodiversity Mainstreaming in Practice: A Review of GEF Experience,’ the review is part of an ongoing process to better inform project design and implementation, identify lessons learned, refine the GEF’s investment strategy, and improve the GEF’s Theory of Change of biodiversity mainstreaming. The publication synthesizes two earlier analyses, one on mainstreaming biodiversity for conservation and a second on mainstreaming biodiversity in production landscapes. It complements them with a systematic review of the final evaluations of completed mainstreaming projects.

The publication aims to identify key “project moderators,” which are factors that are not part of project design and are largely unaffected by the project, but influence the magnitude and quality of the project outcomes, as well as “project design features,” which are design elements that can be changed to make the project more successful.

As highlighted in the publication, the GEF embedded biodiversity mainstreaming in its strategy soon after 2000, focusing on: developing policy and regulatory frameworks that remove perverse subsidies and provide incentives for biodiversity-positive land and resource use; spatial and land-use planning aiming to maximize production without undermining biodiversity; and biodiversity-positive production practices, with a focus on sectors that have significant biodiversity impacts, through capacity building and implementation of financial mechanisms. During its current funding phase (2014-2018), the GEF continues to support these activities, but with a renewed emphasis on ensuring that interventions are spatially targeted and thematically relevant to conserving or sustainably using biodiversity, consistent with the GEF’s mandate to generate global environmental benefits through its investments.

The publication includes the key findings and messages of a literature review and an expert workshop undertaken in 2014. It highlights that given that more than 80% of the Earth’s surface is not managed within protected areas, biodiversity conservation interventions across all landscapes and seascapes are vital. The review underscores that: mainstreaming considerations include the integration of biodiversity goals in development policies, to simultaneously achieve positive biodiversity and development outcomes; and approaches include the incorporation of biodiversity and ecosystem service values into accounting frameworks, policy and regulatory frameworks, production practices and financing mechanisms.

The review also notes that in practice, most apparent win-win biodiversity mainstreaming projects actually involve trade-offs between desired conservation and social outcomes; and that due to the heterogeneity of methods, and lack of clear experimental design and data collection, very little can be concluded about the effectiveness of many mainstreaming tools, including a very commonly employed one, payments for ecosystem services.

Key messages arising from a 2014 workshop highlight, among other issues, that mainstreaming is a complex and costly process that takes a long time to achieve impact at scale and across sectors, decades or even a generation. Investment in policy-relevant, strong and detailed science-based biophysical and socioeconomic data and knowledge is essential for successful interventions. Good governance, strong institutions and communication are key moderators of project success or failure. [Biodiversity Mainstreaming in Practice: A Review of GEF Experience] [Mainstreaming Biodiversity: Conservation for the Twenty-First Century] [Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Production Landscapes]