The Global Evidence Synthesis Initiative (GESI) was launched to enhance the capacity of Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) in synthesizing evidence, and using synthesized evidence to support practice and policy across disciplines including, but not limited to, Agriculture, Economics, Education, Environment, and Health. GESI will achieve these aims through supporting Evidence Synthesis Centers based in LMICs. GESI founding organizations include Cochrane (previously the Cochrane Collaboration), the Campbell Collaboration, the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR), the American Institutes for Research (AIR), the EPPI-Centre, the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE), the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). GESI selected, through a competitive process, the Center for Systematic Reviews on Health Policy and Systems Research (SPARK) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon to host its Secretariat. The GESI Secretariat was established in June 2016, and it reports to a GESI Governance Group that represents GESI's founding organizations. The GESI Secretariat has created a global Network of established Evidence Synthesis Centers. The GESI Network aims to serve as a platform for its Centers to share expertise and experiences and to facilitate collaborations between them. In addition, GESI will work to attract funders interested in supporting the GESI Network. The GESI Network currently consists of 37 Centers from 24 LMICs from across the globe. Mission: To support LMICs to build their capacity to generate and use evidence syntheses, through establishing and supporting centers for evidence synthesis in LMIC. Vision: Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) have adequate capacity for evidence synthesis to inform decisions and policy-making with and across sectors, so as to meet sustainably the needs of individuals, populations and the wider environment.