S 60251 ignposts November 2010 GEF Country Portfolio Evaluation: Turkey (1992­2009) The Evaluation Office of the Efficiency Global Environment Facility Although the GEF Agencies have worked in a complemen- (GEF) conducted a country port- tary manner, there are few synergies and little cross-Agency Carlo Carugi folio evaluation of GEF support to learning; this situation looks to be improving. The World Bank Turkey from 1992 to 2009. The evaluation covered all national and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) projects plus two components of global projects implemented have been the two most important GEF Agencies in Turkey, within Turkish boundaries; these national efforts represented with the former implementing three full-size projects, the last of $36.33 million in GEF support. Eleven regional projects focus- which is still ongoing; and the latter active in Turkey since 1992 ing on the Black and Mediterranean Seas were also reviewed with the SGP and the Black Sea regional projects. Although because of Turkey's significant involvement, as was the coun- GEF projects and Agencies in Turkey have often worked in a try's Small Grants Programme (SGP). complementary way, many GEF projects operate as islands, and little evidence exists of Agencies being institutionally in- Findings volved in their GEF activities. The situation is gradually improv- Relevance ing in the climate change and international waters focal areas, where various GEF Agencies have been working together to GEF support has been relevant to Turkey's sustainable de- prepare projects. velopment agenda and its environmental priorities, except in the area of land degradation. The GEF successfully sup- The traditionally top-down approach to forest management ported Turkish efforts to conserve forest biodiversity in gene in Turkey makes for insufficient coordination, which in turn management zones. Later, synergies were built among local caused delays; these have decreased recently. The first GEF livelihood incentives, local-level development, and improved biodiversity project was formulated and implemented largely environmental management. However, despite its being one without public participation. A second biodiversity project in- of the most pressing environmental problems in Turkey, land volved local people in nature conservation by including their degradation has received almost no support from the GEF. needs and resources in protected area management plans. This initiative proved to be particularly challenging due to a The GEF paved the way for implementing environmental lack of traditional participation in Turkey, severely delaying the aspects of Turkey's European Union accession process. project. Nevertheless, it introduced local involvement in nature Turkish initiatives in this regard will now increase the sus- conservation, and today the situation is improving. tainability of impacts started under the GEF. The prospect of accession to the European Union has been a key initiator in the The complexity of the GEF project cycle has not been a bar- recent ongoing updating of Turkey's sustainable development rier to project development in Turkey. On the whole, and in and environmental agenda. comparison to other countries, Turkey has done remarkably well in getting projects through the GEF project cycle. National GEF support in Turkey has neither been fully nationally full-size projects took an average of 2.1 years to move from owned nor fully country driven, but this has improved in project entry to implementation; this is less than half the GEF recent years. The evaluation found evidence of slow appropri- global average of 5.5 years. ation of a project's objectives by Turkish stakeholders. National stakeholders--mostly from government, but also from civil so- There is little evidence that monitoring and evaluation ciety--eventually take on GEF-initiated projects, adapting them (M&E) is contributing to increased efficiency. M&E of GEF to their needs and context, and owning and driving them. support in Turkey is primarily performed by the GEF Agencies GEF Country Portfolio Evaluation: Turkey (1992­2009) S ignposts at the project level; some portfolio-level monitoring is conducted alized, specifically in exploring how best to build links between by Turkey's Ministry of Environment and Forestry, but this does the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sus- not cover the regional or global GEF projects in which Turkey tainable development at the local level. participates, since the ministry has no information on these. At Results in other focal areas are limited, but in some cases, both levels, monitoring only involves basic information, some of limited funding has had important catalytic effects. The GEF- which is aggregated by focal area and Agency. Substantive data supported initial national communication to the United Nations such as actual achievements at completion and lessons learned Framework Convention on Climate Change has been and con- are not maintained, and M&E information is not consistently ex- tinues to be significant in shaping ongoing action, debate, and changed between the GEF Agencies and the national partners. future climate change policy in Turkey. And the GEF-supported Effectiveness analysis for dealing with persistent organic pollutants, which GEF support to biodiversity in Turkey has contributed to the led to a first draft of a national implementation plan, contributed achievement of significant results, including raising aware- to Turkey's January 2010 signing of the Stockholm Convention. ness and building capacity. The proportion of land under some form of protection for nature conservation has increased Recommendations from 4 percent to about 6 percent since 2000. An in-situ conser- To the GEF Council vation project made important contributions, with impacts still The GEF should increase focal points' involvement in M&E relevant 12 years after project closure. And the GEF II project, activities by sharing M&E information, supporting country despite having faced a number of challenges--regarding public portfolio­level M&E, and providing M&E training. participation and government inertia; local-level poverty; and The GEF Agencies should be encouraged to provide stron- threats to conservation from tourism, road construction, forest ger support to GEF issues outside the GEF-supported extraction, grazing activities, water resource use, and other projects in which they are involved, and promote up-scal- economic activities--broke new ground, introducing participa- ing with partner governments. tory approaches to protected area management in Turkey. To the Government of Turkey GEF support of marine international waters projects has National legal instruments should be approved, and the contributed to strengthening Turkey's commitments to implementation of national strategies and participatory global and regional cooperation to reduce the overexploita- protected area management plans should begin. tion of fish stocks and land- and sea-based pollution in the region. With GEF support, Turkey has helped to shape and be- Turkey should formulate multifocal area projects and pro- come a signatory of protection treaties covering the Black and grams reflecting the GEF-5's proposed ecosystem ap- Mediterranean Seas. Over the past 15 years, the water quality proach in order to address land degradation issues. of the Black Sea has improved considerably--mainly because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent closure of livestock production units along the Danube--and GEF support has contributed to these positive changes. Turkey prepared The GEF Evaluation Office is an independent entity reporting directly to the GEF Council, mandated to evaluate the focal area several studies related to the Protocol for the Control of Land programs and priorities of the GEF. Based Pollutants to protect the Black Sea, some of which were The full version of GEF Country Portfolio Evaluation: Turkey prepared with GEF support; these are awaiting implementation. (1992­2009) (Evaluation Report No. 60, 2010) is available in the Evaluations and Studies section of the GEF Evaluation Office The SGP has been a major success in Turkey, providing Web site, www.gefeo.org. Also available on the Web site is GEF Annual Country Portfolio Evaluation Report 2010 (Evaluation many examples of how to meet both global and local ob- Report No. 58), which presents a synthesis of the two country jectives. Despite challenges, the GEF has helped develop the portfolio evaluations (for Moldova and Turkey) undertaken in concept of, and capacity for, local-level natural resource man- 2009­10. For more information, please contact the GEF Evalua- tion Office at gefeo@thegef.org. agement in Turkey. The potential of the SGP has been fully re-