Investing in the Circular Economy with Dr. Sunday Leonard

In this episode, Sarah sits down with Sunday Leonard, the Executive Officer and Head of Secretariat of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel to the Global Environment Facility, which is hosted by the United Nations Environment Program, to share more about his role and discuss the facility’s investments in projects focused on climate change mitigation, adaptation and the circular economy.

Transcript

Sunday Leonard (00:00): 

So when you use a systems thinking approach, it helps you to identify what’s integrated and what can you achieve? How many multiple benefits can you deliver that will maximize synergies, minimize tradeoffs among the benefits, and deliver socioeconomic benefits that are necessary to engage the necessary stakeholders. When you design projects, don’t design projects only for the now, you need to think of how are these different drivers going to change in the near future? 

(00:30):

How will this change affect the goal I’m trying to achieve in the next 20 years? In the next 50 years? The use of the right materials, designing products for appropriate lifetime and for extended future use. So you think of designing your phone or an electronic product, or even fashion textile- using the right materials that will ensure that this product lasts long, avoiding using chemicals that are harmful, that will make it difficult for you to be able to recycle or reuse the product.

Sarah Johnson (00:58) : 

Welcome to the Pathway Podcast. I’m your host, Sarah Johnson, and thank you for joining us for this episode. Pathway to Tomorrow is a nonprofit with initiatives in housing, environmental conservation, and water security. In this podcast series, we engage with leaders working on solving some of the world’s most challenging problems by exploring innovative solutions being implemented by leading NGOs, nonprofits, think tanks, companies and international organizations focused on issues like homelessness, environmental conservation, climate change and water security. 

(01:34):

Our guest today is Dr. Sunday Leonard. Dr. Leonard is the Executive Officer and head of the Secretariat of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel to the Global Environment Facility, which is hosted by the United Nations Environment Program Office in Washington, DC. The Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel comprises leading experts, supported by a Secretariat, that provide independent scientific and technical advice to the Global Environment Facility on its policies, strategies, programs and projects. 

(2:00):

The Global Environment Facility is a family of funds dedicated to confronting environmental challenges, including biodiversity loss, climate change, chemical pollution and strains on land and ocean health. Its grants, blended financing and policy support help developing countries address their biggest environmental priorities and adhere to international environmental conventions. Over the past three decades, the GEF has provided over $23 billion and mobilized $129 billion in co-financing for more than 5,000 national and regional projects across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and South America.

(02:34):

At STAP, apart from being responsible for the day to day management of the Secretariat, Dr. Leonard also covers climate change, chemicals and waste, the circular economy, sustainable cities and their interlinkages with other cross-cutting sustainable development issues. He has been with the United Nations Environment Program for over 12 years. 

Sarah Johnson (02:52):

Sunday, we’re so thrilled to have you on today. Thank you so much for joining us.


Sunday Leonard (02:55): 

It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.


Sarah Johnson (02:57): 

So to start us off Sunday, can you tell us a bit about your role as the head of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel to the Global Environmental Facility?

Sunday Leonard (03:04): 

Thank you. Let me start by describing the work of the STAP. Our work is usually divided into two parts – advising the GEF on policy strategies, programs and projects and in providing those advice to GEF, we bring together the latest science and bring that into the work of the GEF. So that includes scanning the horizon, working with scientific networks to understand emerging issues to the GEF and presenting this to the GEF partnership. It also involves taking the scientific needs of the GEF to our network, our scientific network. The second category of our work I will call quality control. This involves reviewing GEF projects and providing advice and guidance on how those projects can be improved so that we can get good return on investment.

(03:51):

So what is my role in all of this? As the head of the Secretariat of STAP, I coordinate the strategic engagement of staff with the GEF Council, the Secretariat, the different agencies and all other stakeholders to ensure effective delivery and communication of staff advice to the GEF. Also in this role, I help ensure that panel members are appraised of strategic, scientific and technical issues affecting GEF policies, operation, strategies and programs. And then I will say I’m responsible for supervising the day to day functioning of the STAP Secretariat, including its management, coordination, administrative support to the panel, and its implementation of its work program.

Sarah Johnson (04:35
): 

Thank you for sharing that Sunday. So you mentioned that STAP’s role within the GEF partnership is to provide advice and quality control to help maximize global environmental benefits. Can you share examples of your recent advice to the GEF focused on ensuring that GEF projects and programs deliver benefits for the global environment?

Sunday Leonard (04:53
): 

As you rightly noted, the Global Environment Facility seeks to maximize the achievement of enduring global environmental benefits from its investments and scaling outcomes to achieve transformational change. With this objective in mind, recently, we brought together the scientific community, spoke to leading project and program practitioners to understand what are the elements that need to be present in the project and program that will deliver the GEF objective of maximizing global environmental benefits and helping to achieve transformational change. And in this work with the scientific community, we came up with eight enabling elements for good project design. 

(05:34):

So I will quickly go through the eight elements that we deem important when designing projects. The first is applying a systems thinking approach. And applying a system thinking approach is to create a rich understanding of the system function, and then developing a good theory of change that explains how the set of proposed actions can logically lead to enduring global environmental benefits. Systems thinking involves looking at the interaction between the different elements in the system. So if you are designing a project that is focused on a food system, you want to look at who are the different actors in that system? What are the different factors that you need to take into consideration in designing a project to address environmental challenges? 

(06:18):

So the first, as I said, is applying systems thinking. The second enabling element is engaging the right stakeholders. It’s important to develop multi stakeholder engagement from inception and during design of the project and even beyond. So through and early stakeholder analysis, considering the different power dynamics and the need to achieve behavioral change, we can look at what kind of stakeholders need to be at the table, what incentives do we need to put in place to make sure that the stakeholders are going to support and ensure the delivery of the environmental benefit that we are focusing on. Then the third one is to pursue integrated outcomes. 

(07:00):

Most of the time you see environmental projects focused narrowly on one outcome. But as I said earlier, most of the issues we deal with are interconnected. So when you use a systems thinking approach, it helps you to identify what integrated outcome can you achieve? How many multiple benefits can you deliver that will maximize synergies, minimize trade offs among the benefits, and deliver socioeconomic benefits that are necessary to engage the necessary stakeholders? Then the fourth element is to intentionally foster behavioral change. It is important to recognize the most significant intervention, especially if we want it to be transformational, involves a change in behavior – change in behavior of the different actors involved in the system, and ensuring that that behavioral aspect is addressed in projects is important for achieving the goal of the project. 

(07:59):

Then the fifth one is to purposefully focus on innovation. Invest in innovation. Think of what are the new ways of doing things that you can bring into the design of the project. And this could be technological innovation, this could be a new financing mechanism, it could be new business models, it could be change in policy or institutional change – a new way of maybe coming up with policies or designing policies. So thinking of this innovation, of course knowing that innovation comes with risk. So managing the risk and pursuing purposeful innovation is important for delivering environmental benefits. 

(08:38):

And then the sixth one is to scale for system transformation. So it is not just necessary to create projects that address solutions in a specific setting or geographical setting. But it is important to think, how do we move towards transformation? How do we scale up? So it means you need to design a theory of change, focus on scaling up, identifying what are the barriers to scale up and how do you address those barriers? The seventh element that we identified is ensuring that the project is robust, or the outcomes are robust to future change. In this sense, future change will mean that there are many drivers of change – climate change, economic factors, population and so on. 

(09:23):

When you design projects, don’t design projects only for the now, you need to think of how are these different drivers going to change in the near future? How will this change affect the goal I’m trying to achieve in the next 20 years, in the next 50 years? And then make sure that the interventions being created now are going to be resilient to that uncertain future, to what the future is going to look like. Make sure you design for that. And then the last, which is not the least, is that it’s important to support learning with knowledge management. 

(09:54):

As you develop projects, and as you implement projects, you discover that things don’t go exactly how it’s planned. It is important to collect the knowledge that you are gaining from those experiences. Monitoring needs, evaluating, learning from it, and then incorporating it into an adaptive management that helps ensure that the goal you are trying to achieve is being inputted into the design of the project. So those are the eight elements that we identified that we think when project designers look at these elements, include them in the design of the project, then there is a high probability of achieving the outcome that will be transformational and that will help move us towards sustainable development.


Sarah Johnson (10:35): 

Thank you so much for sharing that, Sunday. Now I want to dig more into the elements of good projects and how they’re being implemented in the GEF projects. You’ve mentioned these elements. Could you share an example of projects focused on climate change, for example, and how these enabling elements were applied in their design?

Sunday Leonard (10:51
): 

Yeah, I think an example of climate change projects is a project in Saint Kitts and Nevis, which focused on achieving rapid decarbonization of the energy sector in that country. The country continues to depend on fossil fuel combustion for its energy needs. It is estimated that most of the country’s emission comes from the energy sector, mainly from the power industry and the transportation sector. Although the overall emission from Saint Kitts is minute in comparison to bigger countries, the per capita emissions are relatively large due to the very small population. In fact, electricity generation is responsible for close to 65% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the country because the country relys entirely on diesel generators. 

(11:37):

As a result, the emission intensity of the country that it consumes is higher than the global average. The reliance on fossil fuel imports for electricity generation and road transport substantially impacts the country’s gross domestic product. And while expenditure on such imports reached up to 5.2% of the country’s GDP in 2016, its  capital consumption in the country is among the highest in the Eastern Caribbean countries. So what did this project try to do? The project aimed to take a comprehensive, integrated approach to decarbonizing the energy sector. Ultimate objective is to accelerate the transition towards 100% renewable electricity generation and 100% high energy efficiency public building in the country. 

(12:20):

Now, while many projects like this could focus only on the technical investments of introducing renewable energy solutions in the country, these projects, taking into consideration the needs, the different enabling elements, takes a comprehensive approach that can lead to scaling of solutions and achieve transformational change in the energy sector by seeking first to create an enabling environment needed for promoting the transformation of the energy sector. So creating that enabling environment includes developing a national energy policy for achieving 100% renewable energy generation, energy efficiency to guide the objective of decarbonization of the energy sector. 

(12:58):

And this involves understanding the system. What are the factors? What is the consumption of energy in the country? Who are the main stakeholders? Who are the main actors? And then getting them involved in the development of this national energy policy. Then, apart from developing this energy policy, the project also include developing a roadmap and investment plans for implementing the national energy policy and inclusion of institutional strengthening mechanisms addressing technical, regulatory, investment planning capacity for achieving the transition towards 100% renewable electricity generation. 

(13:32):

Now, another enabling element featured in the project is the inclusion of knowledge management and monitoring systems for data collection on electricity supply and demand, tracking the implementation of the National Energy Policy Roadmap and Investment Plan, and then this data then continues to feed into the project and helps facilitate improvement and adaptive management. In terms of innovation, the project includes a component focused  on working with the development bank of the country to develop blended finance mechanisms that help reduce the initial capital cost requirements, while also attracting participation and investment of private actors, and facilitating the engagement of micro, small and medium sized enterprises investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. 

(14:18):

So this project brings together these different elements – innovation, knowledge management, systems thinking, to create an enabling environment for the transition. This project is ongoing now and we are looking forward to seeing the outcome of the seeds that will be sown in terms of moving towards 100% renewable energy in that country.

Sarah Johnson (14:38
):

Thank you for sharing that, Sunday. That’s a very exciting project. Could you also share some of GEF’s projects on land and ecosystem restoration, and how these enabling elements can ensure project success in those areas?


Sunday Leonard (14:50): 

I will share an innovative project to protect the algae biodiverse ecosystem in Chad. I like this project as a good example because it combines several aspects of our enabling elements, including adopting a systems thinking approach, engaging the right stakeholders, pursuing integrated outcomes, and investing purposefully in innovative solutions. The project is in Chad, a country with several environmental challenges, including drought, erosion, biodiversity loss. And these challenges have led to social issues, including food insecurity, conflicts between farmers and others. 

(15:26):

The project is located in the Canyon region, in the north east of Lake Chad and on the border with Niger. This region is one of the most vulnerable to climate change, and the most impacted by chronic food and nutrition crises in the Sahel, with 56% of its population being in a state of food insecurity. Now, the region is subjected to recurring environmental shocks such as droughts and locust plagues. Now the farm lands, which are called the Ouadis, are affected by silting and decrease of the water table. So there’s the water challenge, degradation of land, and then structural vulnerabilities linked to low investments in basic social services aggravated by destabilizing events such as the Lake Chad crisis. 

(16:08):

Lake Chad has shrunk by up to 8,000% in recent years. So what is this project trying to do? The project seeks to accelerate investments in renewable energy, to increase energy access while promoting sustainable land management practices for restoring the Ouadi ecosystem  – that is the farmland in that region. So it’s a project that combines different solutions, including renewable energy, land management, and then introducing innovative water use and management solutions to support post-harvest agricultural activities and address water insecurity concerns. 

(16:42):

Now, how did this project come up with this solution? It uses a systems thinking approach and effective stakeholder engagement to analyze the interconnections and linkages between the environmental, social and economic issues in the region. And then came up with an innovative solution focused on solar mini grid, or something we call agrivoltaics. So agrivoltaics is the combination of renewable energy with agriculture. So these projects look at the challenges of land degradation and the need for food security for the farmers and the community. And they came up with this agrivoltaic solution as a way for managing the land sustainably and then producing water for farm, for agricultural activities. With this sustainable land management practice specifically tailored to the region, it provides multiple environmental and socioeconomic benefits. 

(17:29):

The project also imbibed lessons from previous mini grid projects in the region, and that creates scalable solutions. The project also includes developing a business model that facilitates access to finance for communities and farmers, cooperatives, through negotiated access power purchase agreements with private sector actors, based on lessons learned from other past projects. So in this aspect, to help the farmers to be able to raise the financing to be able to access solar energy, which is capital intensive, the business model involved negotiating  a power purchase agreement with different private sector actors in the country. 

(18:06):

And then this project aimed to reduce carbon emissions while providing ecological restoration, preserving biodiversity and providing socioeconomic benefits to rural communities, including addressing food insecurity, gender equality and promoting increased energy access and peace building through innovative solar mini grid, combined with sustainable land management initiatives in the sensitive ecosystem. Hence, the project demonstrates the enabling element of pursuing integrated outcomes, creating incentives for stakeholders to support the achievement of the environmental outcomes. 

(18:40):

Because the project is designed in such a way that apart from addressing the environmental challenges, the stakeholders, the farmers, the communities, the private sector benefits from the project. It provides an incentive for them to ensure that the projects deliver the outcome. And that’s one important aspect when you design projects, thinking of the socio economic benefits beyond just the environmental benefit – that creates an incentive for stakeholders to change their behavior in the way they act towards the environment. Once you have a win-win solution that provides benefits to them, then it helps nudge stakeholders to address the challenges of environmental degradation.


Sarah Johnson (19:17): 

Thank you for sharing that, Sunday. Such an incredible project with multifaceted benefits to the communities that you’re working in. So for our next question –  in your work, you talk about projects that deal with the circular economy and utilize circular economic principles. Could you define this for us and also share examples of projects that the GEF has invested in that use circular economic principles?


Sunday Leonard (19:39): 

The circular economy is an economic model that has been gaining traction in the last few years and is becoming very, very popular. How do we define the circular economy approach? It’s an alternative to the current predominantly linear approach, which involves to take, to make, to use and dispose. That is what is predominant in our economic system.  The circular economy seeks to keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them while in use, and recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of their service life. So a circular economy approach ensures that products, materials and resources are maintained at their highest utility and value for as long as possible to minimize waste generation, it usually avoids the use of harmful or hazardous materials, because this prevents their reuse or their recycling at the end of their life. 

(20:32):

The circular economy approach embraces the systems thinking that I’ve been talking about and innovation. It seeks to ensure that stakeholders in the material value chain play a significant role in achieving a more efficient use of resources. So in a circular economy, we don’t just simply consider the end of life options such as recycling. Recycling is part of the circular economy, but it is not the circular economy. It’s just one aspect. And it’s even the last resort in a circular economy. In a circular economy, you want to think of the overall accounting of the material, and the energy flows from cradle to cradle. 

(21:07):

So from the design of the product, even when we are thinking of the products in our mind, we start thinking, how do we make sure that this product stays long in its use, and is easy to restore or reuse that product? You upcycle it into a better product in a new life. So it means applying a lifestyle approach, looking at the different lifecycles across the supply chain and the value chain of a product, and ensuring that we put in the key principles of circular economy. And what are these key principles? It means prioritizing regenerative resources and sharing or focusing on renewable or renewable resources that we can use all over again. 

(21:45):

So when you think of agriculture and think of how do I apply my agriculture in such a way that I use resources that are renewable? How do I address a farm in a way that the soil is not degraded into something we call regenerative agriculture? Then the second principle or element of a circular economy is to design for the future. So you adopt a systemic full lifecycle perspective during design, to promote the use of the right materials, designing products for appropriate lifetime and for extended future use. So you think of designing your phone or an electronic product, or even fashion textiles – using the right material that will ensure that this product lasts long, avoiding using chemicals that are harmful, that will make it difficult for you to be able to recycle or reuse the product, and then using waste as a resource. 

(22:35):

So in this, in our current system, waste is always seen as something to throw away. But in a circular economy you think of how do I reuse this waste? How do I turn it into a resource that will be beneficial? And then this also involves rethinking our business models. So consider opportunities to create greater value, and align incentives through business models that build on the relationship between products and services. So instead of buying a car, can sharing a car be a better business model or even electronic products or hard goods? What business model can help us use these things in a way that lasts long, and in a way that we can collect them at the end of their life and reuse them. 

(23:17):

And then, of course, incorporating digital technologies, digital technologies play a significant role in the tracking and of optimizing the use of resources and improving supply chain actors through digital and online platforms. So the circular economy approach has found application across various economic sectors. As I said, it’s gaining significant traction and many, even the private sector organizations, are buying into the circular economy approach as more and more of them see the benefits of the circular economy approach. So it’s being applied in agriculture, for example, in regenerative agriculture, in energy. So thinking of how do we recycle our solar panels as they are getting to their end of life? What is the use of for transportation in electric cars? 

(24:01):

How can we reuse the batteries in electric cars? In construction, how can you design a house in such a way that at the end of life of the house, you can actually break them down and reuse them through something we call modular design? In the issue of plastics, in textiles, in electronics and manufacturing. Now, in terms of what the GEF is doing along this line, I will give an example of a project that the GEF invested in, in Ethiopia, focused on the promotion of circular economy in the textile and garment sector through sustainable management of chemicals and waste in the sector. This project illustrates how systems thinking underpins integration related to the circular economy and can deliver co-benefits that act as incentives important for behavioral change among stakeholders. 

(24:46):

The project seeks to promote the concept of circular economy in the textile and garment sector in Ethiopia – a true evaluation approach that addresses the sector’s upstream resource use. The introduction of green and sustainable chemistry in textile production, as well as downstream aspects through the reuse, recycling and conversion of garment discards and related waste into economically viable and socially beneficial products and services. So the projects use resource efficient and clean up production technologies in the production of textiles to improve productivity and reduce waste. So it adopts best available technologies, applying new types of chemicals that are not harmful in the processing and production of textiles, so that at the end of life of the textiles, they can be reused easily or recycled for other products. 

(25:38):

As a result of a holistic circular economy approach, the project expects to improve the delivery of multiple environmental benefits as well as socioeconomic benefits. So because the project seeks to use renewable energy, it means greenhouse gas emissions from the textile production is reduced. The use of best available technology prevents or avoids chemical pollution – so that is eliminated. And then, the waste products, by using them as resources, it prevents the burning of waste, thereby reducing air pollution and improving human health in the community. So this provides not just benefits for the sector, but also the community where the industrial area is, is located. 

(26:22):

Also, by creating resourceful, useful, usually discarded materials in the sector, this project creates new jobs and generates profitable green investment opportunities that contribute economically to targeted stakeholders. So delivering co-benefits requires designing integration using systems thinking. So these projects involve a system analysis to understand the various environmental elements, the chemicals involved, the air, the land, water and they are linked with societal elements – food security, human health and well-being. Now, this type of assessment assists in the defined tradeoffs, synergies between multiple benefits which could be useful to map and develop a good theory of change. This is what this project did. 

(27:04):

And then by identifying the appropriate stakeholders – the farmers who are involved in cotton production, the different workers that work in the factories, the community people who live in those areas that are affected by the industry, the project is designed and implemented, marking their roles and responsibilities and its importance to achieve innovation and transformation along the supply chain of the textile and gaming sector. So this multi-stakeholder dialog helps integrate the different sectors and policy, helps spread knowledge and learning and manage divergent values and helps shift behavior. 

(27:38):

And then as the project is implemented, these solutions are tested and then they are reframed, and then the learning from the project is monitored and evaluated and used for adaptive management to ensure that the project continues to generate the co-benefits. So this same project is also ongoing now in Ethiopia and there will be reports on the outcomes in the future.

Sarah Johnson (27:58
): 

Thank you so much for sharing that, Sunday. Another incredible impactful project. So my last question for you Sunday, something I like to ask all of our guests, is what would you say are some of the behavioral changes that need to take place in the private sector, as well as on an individual level, to mitigate the growing effects of climate change and land degradation?

Sunday Leonard (28:17): 

Thank you. As I said, behavioral change is very important for achieving transformation. And this is not just for individuals. It’s also for the public sector, for the private sector. But let me say that organizations don’t truly change behavior. When we see that happening, then we should know that it is the people in the organization that began to think and act differently. So it is the sum of the changes among the people that make up the organization, that results in organizational transformation. So we need individuals, the different actors in an organization, to start behaving in a specific direction. So that said, specific behavioral change that is needed in the private sector includes adopting a sustainable business model that aligns with business profitability. 

(29:01):

So understanding that a sustainable business model does not mean that an organization will lose their profitability. They can all work together. So sustainable business models that align with business profitability as well as environmental objectives. For example, the circular economy model, such as product as a service, where businesses provide a service delivered by a product instead of focusing on selling the product, is an example that has been proven that can help, that is profitable, but also beneficial for sustainable development. Also, I think businesses need to rethink organizational corporate social responsibility models. 

(29:39):

The current business model occurrence, or sustainability model, tends to prioritize organizational economic obligation or profit and relegates the legal, ethical, and philanthropic obligation. An important behavioral change is for the private sector to approach its obligation through a lens that considers how these obligations are intertwined and integrated.  So organizations have an economic obligation to their shareholders, small scale businesses have an obligation to make profit or turn a profit. But that doesn’t mean that the legal or ethical or philanthropic obligations should be relegated. So the private sector, as well as the public sector would need to adopt a systems thinking approach that considers the causes and effects of organizational activities and addresses long term consequences rather than short term benefit. 

(30:30):

So the leaders in the private sector need to help the different actors within the organization to start thinking, if I’m developing a product, I should not focus only on the profits, but I should incorporate the externalities. What is the environmental impact of my product? What is the ethical impact of my product? And then think through all of these in coming up with how the product or the business model is going to be used to implement or deliver the product. Thinking long term and not just about the short term benefits. And then businesses and organizations, in thinking this way, they can help nudge the consumers, the individual towards sustainability. 

(31:09):

Individuals make choices every day about what to buy, what to eat, what to recycle, what to wear to work, whether to walk or drive or take public transportation and so on. But most of the time, we think that these decisions are made solely by the individual. But most of the time these decisions are not made solely by the individual. They are highly susceptible to environmental and social cues to the different factors, the systems that are in place. For example, if I decide that I’m going to bike or I’m going to walk to reduce my emission, it becomes impossible if there are  no biking tracks  in my vicinity. 

(31:47):

So there are systems that need to be put in place by the public sector, but also the private sector, because they have significant influence on the decisions of people, companies can play a role in steering consumers to make sustainable choices. They can help nudge consumers so companies can already shift behaviors. They can encourage environmental and social conscious behavior among consumers. So, for example, if in the travel quartile where I can book a flight, it provides opportunities to look at the carbon impacts of my flight, it can help me to make a decision on how I select or if I choose to travel or not. Or if I can choose to offset the impacts of my travels. So it is important for businesses to incorporate this into their business model and then help consumers in making the right decisions, help individuals in living a more sustainable life. 

(32:44):

Because for many, research has shown that consumers have been asked, why are you still using plastic? And they say it’s because it’s available, or because the retail shop makes it available for them to use it. So businesses can help individuals to make the right choices, choices to change behavior. So as they change behavior, they can nudge individuals to make the right decisions, to protect the planet, to prevent land degradation, improve water availability, and mitigate climate change.

Sarah Johnson (33:11
): 

Thank you for providing those examples, Sunday. Lots of really great examples of simple changes that can be made to guide changes in behaviors. So thank you so much again for joining us, Sunday. It’s been wonderful to learn more about your work and insights on some of the projects that the GEF is investing in. For those interested in learning more, you can visit STAP’s website at www.stapgef.org and the GEF website at www.thegef.org. 

(33:42):

To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Pathway Podcast to get alerts on new episodes featuring thought leaders working in housing, environmental conservation, climate change and water security.