The World Bank Group was a principal founding partner of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in its pilot phase in 1991, and of the restructured GEF in 1994. The Bank plays three different roles in the GEF: (a) as trustee of the GEF and related trust funds, (b) as implementing agency, including the implementation of private-sector GEF projects by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and (c) as the host organization of the functionally independent GEF secretariat. Focusing primarily on the role of the Bank as an implementing agency, this review documents how the partnership that the GEF and the World Bank Group established in the early 1990s has evolved over time, offers explanations for observed changes, and draws a number of lessons. The review addresses the following issues: * The mutual relevance of the World Bank Group and the GEF * Inter-organizational coordination along the World Bank Group-GEF project cycle * The introduction of the GEF’s resource allocation systems in 2006 and 2010 * The evolution and effectiveness of the Bank Group’s GEF portfolio * Catalytic approaches in the Bank Group-GEF partnership: co-financing, blending, and mainstreaming * The World Bank’s corporate activities as a GEF implementing agency. The principal purposes of this review are (a) to help improve the relevance and effectiveness of the Bank Group’s partnership with the GEF, and (b) to draw lessons for the Bank Group’s partnership with the GEF and other large global partnership programs.

An examination of the conflict between values and bureaucracy in World Bank biodiversity partnerships that sheds light on this model of global environmental governance. Multi-stakeholder partnerships have become an increasingly common form of global governance. Partnerships, usually between international organizations (IOs) or state agencies and such private actors as NGOs, businesses, and academic institutions, have even been promoted as the gold standard of good governance--participatory, innovative, and well-funded. And yet these partnerships often fail to live up to the values that motivated their establishment. In this book, Teresa Kramarz examines this gap between promise and performance by analyzing partnerships in biodiversity conservation initiatives launched by the World Bank.

This book explores the possibilities and scope of facilitating innovation and transfer of the environmentally sound technologies in the Post-Paris climate era. The possibilities to be explored by the book will first focus on the roles of the climate finance and technological cooperation mechanisms in innovation and transfer of environmentally sound technologies. Secondly, the book will focus on role of the ‘flexible mechanism’ (i.e. indirect financial mechanisms), which has been re-introduced by the Paris Agreement as ‘voluntary cooperation’ or ‘sustainable development’ mechanism in innovation and transfer of environmentally sound technologies. Thirdly, the book will contain a comparative analysis regarding efficiency of the technology transfer mechanism under global climate regime in comparison with technology transfer mechanism that exists under other multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). In addition to the above, since the issues of trans-boundary technology transfer is also a matter of concern for international trade, the book will discuss to what extent the international trade related laws e.g. intellectual property laws, investment related laws governed by the World Trade Organizations (WTO) can play role in facilitating transfer of the environmentally sound technologies. Another important aspect that this book will cover is potential roles which private sectors can play in innovating and transferring environmentally sound technologies under above-mentioned instruments of international law. In short, this book will be based on the argument that if global climate regime and the international trade regime collaborate each other in creating enabling environment and attracting private sector to invest in the field of environmentally sound technologies, the global challenges of innovation and transfer of the environmentally sound technologies to the developing and least developed countries can be fulfilled in more efficient manner. From conceptual perspectives, discussions and analyses of the book will be made in the light of the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) - two main guiding principles of the international laws on climate change. This book will be of great interest to scholars of climate change, technology transfer, intellectual property and sustainable development. Besides, national and international level policy makers dealing with climate change and sustainable development will be greatly benefitted from this book.