The forty-fifth meeting of the Council of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) convened on Tuesday, 5 November, at the World Bank offices in Washington D.C. The meeting was opened by GEF CEO and Chairperson Naoko Ishii who highlighted recent MEA activities, which she said indicate strong demand for GEF as an important player in the global environment. She welcomed Conservation International and WWF-US as two new GEF Project Agencies. The Council elected Margarita Perez Villaseñor (Council member for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela constituency) as Chairperson and adopted the agenda.

In the morning, the Council: considered Annual Monitoring Review FY 13: Part I; Annual Report on the Impact and Management Response; Progress Report on the Pilot Accreditation of GEF Project Agencies; and a Note on the Organization of the Fifth GEF Assembly.

In the afternoon, the Council addressed: the Progress Report of the GEF Evaluation Office Director, including the OPS6 Progress Report and Management Response; Mid-Term Evaluation of the System for Transparent Allocation of Resources and Management Response; Mid-Term Evaluation of the National Portfolio Formulation Exercise (NPFE) and Management Response; and the Progress Report on the GEF Project Cycle Streamlining Measures.