The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) established the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP) to provide financial and technical support to projects that conserve and restore the environment while enhancing people’s well being and livelihoods.
The programme provides grants of up to $50,000 directly to local communities including indigenous people, community-based organizations and other NGO groups for projects in Biodiversity, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Land Degradation and Sustainable Forest Management, International Waters and Chemicals. The areas of work of under UNDP’s GEF Small Grants Programme include:
- Climate Change: Climate Change Mitigation and Community Based Adaptation
- Land Degradation
- Sustainable Forest Management
- International Waters
- Chemicals
The approaches adopted by the programme are:
- Capacity Development
- Community Empowerment and Participation
- Poverty Reduction
- Gender Mainstreaming
- Indigenous People
- Youth Participation
- Knowledge Management
- Replication and Up-scaling
- Policy Impact
As NGOs and CBOs play a key role in the UNDP’s Small Grants Programme (SGP) agenda, the grants are offered directly to them to address the issues covered by it. The SGP provides a maximum of US $50,000 for each organization but it usually averages to around US $25,000 per year. The Small Grants Programme (SGP) is available in many countries and each country has an SGP National Coordinator responsible for coordinating funding applications with NGOs. If your organization is eligible to apply for SGP, then you need to first contact the SGP National Coordinator in your country.
If you are thinking of applying for this opportunity in your country, you can refer to our comprehensive guide on ‘How to apply for UNDP’s Small Grants Programme’ here.
