General

The Global Environment Facility was established in October 1991 as a pilot program in the World Bank to assist in the protection of the global environment. In 1994 at the Rio Earth Summit the GEF was restructured and moved out of the World Bank system to b ecome a permanent separate institution. As part of the restructuring the GEF was entrusted to become the financial mechanism for both the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Conventionon Climate Change. The GEF subsequently was also selected to serve as financial mechanism for three more international conventions: The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (2003) and the Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) .The GEF strives to achieve global environmental benefits by supporting developing countries in their efforts. After various changes agreed upon during last two replenishment negotiations the work is focused around five thematic focal areas: biodiversity; climate change mitigation; chemicals and waste; international waters; and land degradation. Furthermore an integrated approach pilot was established during the sixth replenishment negotiations to support activities in recipient countries that can help them meet commitments to more than one global convention or thematic area by tackling underlying drivers of environmental degradation. This synergetic approach will continue in GEF-7 through Impact Programs focused on food systems forests and cities.The GEF is a network organization. It is composed of independent secretariat and evaluation office the World Bank acts as a trustee channelling project support to implementing entities such as to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Finland has supported t he GEF from the very beginning. The support to the seventh replenishment of the GEF (1.7.2018-30.6.2022) is about 31 million euros. This budget decision covers 26 million from the total contribution.

General

Within the project, an initial workshop with the two local communities involved will take place, SDI's existing land mapping guides will be updated, the communities' land use and natural resources will be mapped, the communities' land use norms will be doc umented, their awareness of how to tackle investors interested in land acquisition will be increased, communication material and radio programmes will be produced. Finally, the lessons learnt during the project will be analysed and shared with national and international decision-makers. Liberia is one of the African countries, which has granted most land concessions to the national elite and foreign investors; 25% of its land area. The land is used for industrial agriculture as well as forestry and mining i ndustries, for instance rubber and oil palm plantations. Consequences include forced displacement of local communities, environmental damage, human rights violations, livelihood uncertainty and land conflicts. Therefore, communities lack legal advice, info rmation on the consequences of contracting their lands, and ways to get investors to respect the contracts made. The aim of the project is to gather best practices on how to support communities to protect their traditional lands, resources, livelihoods and cultures. By increasing the capacity of the communities, the aim is to raise awareness of their land governance strategies. In addition, the aim is to ensure participatory, responsible and informed decision-making of the communities when deciding on their land and resource management. They will also be supported in negotiating and reaching a fair compensation on investments regarding their lands. The project will be implemented with two local communities in the River Cess county (approximately 7,000 commun ity members). The communities are mostly members of the forest dependent Bassa tribe. Typical livelihoods are related to agriculture, fishing, hunting, traditional medicine, artisan mining and non-timber forest products (rattan).