Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme

A two day Workshop on Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (SGP) was held recently in New Delhi.

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• UNDP has been supporting the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in implementing the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and financed Small Grants Programme (SGP) in India since 1997.
• Projects under the SGP are implemented through a National Host Institution – Centre for Environment Education (CEE), and other NGO partners and stakeholders that has presence in different parts of the country.

What is GEF-Small Grants Programme?

• It was launched in 1992 with 33 participating countries and has expanded to provide assistance to 125 countries currently.
• It provides financial and technical support to communities and Civil Society Organizations to meet the overall objective of global environmental benefits secured through community-based initiatives and actions.
• The SGP believes that community-driven and civil society-led initiatives can generate environmental benefits, while supporting sustainable livelihoods, gender equality and civil society empowerment.
• The Program is specifically designed to mobilize bottom-up actions by empowering local civil society organizations, and poor and vulnerable communities, including women and Indigenous Peoples.
• It is currently implemented by UNDP on behalf of the GEF partnership.

Key achievements of SGP in India

• SGP has been operational for over 25 years and is being implemented throughout the India.
• In India SGP has been working extensively in the areas of biodiversity conservation, climate change and land degradation.
• 110,000 hectares of land brought under sustainable land and resource management in the Western Ghats, Himalayan Front and Arid and Semi-Arid Regions through sustainable measures such as organic farming and community managed enterprises
• 85,000 MTs of CO2 emissions reduced through a range of alternative energy and energy efficient technologies such as efficient cook stoves, solar driers, and briquetting units, plastic wasters recycling units, micro-hydro, and biomass.
• Promotion of sustainable income generation activities among the small farm holders.
  
  

  Global Environment Facility The Global Environment Facility was established on the eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to help tackle our planet’s most pressing environmental problems. GEF is an international partnership of 183 countries, international institutions, civil society organizations and the private sector that addresses global environmental issues. The GEF serves as "financial mechanism" to five conventions: Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and Minamata Convention on Mercury. The GEF, although not linked formally to the Montreal Protocol, supports implementation of the Protocol in Countries with Economies in Transition. India is a member of a GEF constituency comprised of the following countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.