In March 2018, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) held a Science and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) workshop, inviting international leaders from academia, NGOs and the private sector to work together to develop strategies to combat climate change. TIV’s President, Dr. Atul Wad, presented his expert opinion and coordinated a discussion on Innovation Promotion, exploring the foundational tactics towards climate change innovation efforts. Namely, Dr. Wad explained that the innovation apparatus of choice must be able to leverage existing networks of development agencies, promote novel policies, and introduce technological advancements to their targets of interest.

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Moreover, Dr. Wad elaborated on challenges, such as how innovation can be impeded by a lack of venture and risk capital. Organizations need to divert their focus from debt to equity investment. Dr. Wad also advised adopting a reformed approach, such as allocating a lesser fraction of typical GEF efforts to traditional technologies, e.g., clean energy, while investigating the utility of novel technologies. For example, blockchain and ICT have innovative use cases, such as remote sensing to help pastoral herders and tracking devices to aid wildlife conservation efforts.

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This collaboration by TIV and other participants culminated in a joint GEF and UN Environment publication, “Innovation and the GEF: A STAP document.” The study made multiple cross-cutting recommendations at the intersection of environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, and longevity of results.