This paper highlights the effectiveness and shortcomings of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Trust Fund in the Pacific. It focuses on the five recent funding cycles GEF-4 to GEF-8, spanning over two decades from 2006 to 2026. It draws from documented evidence, lived/worked experiences, and an analysis of available literature covering the period 2007 to 2023. The paper draws heavily on the author’s analyses of GEF data and is based on over two decades of development work experience in the Pacific region, which covers climate change and climate financing. The paper highlights how the collective efforts of the Pacific, as a region, can be optimized to effect much-needed changes within the GEF Trust Fund. These changes reflect a number of perceived weaknesses in the Facility including the slow-paced evolution of the GEF Trust Fund, the lack of scholarly research on climate change mitigation, and other issues pertaining to equity, and the lack of meaningful operationalization of the GEF Trust Fund. The paper concludes with a number of propositions including shifting from early wins and being a participant-controlled mechanism, to being people-centered and prioritizing local environmental benefits with dual impact on social protection.