"In the Pacific, we are dealing with a range of development issues. Two of those are environmental issues, - climate change is a key issue in the Pacific, and also biodiversity and other environmental issues. At the same time in the Pacific, poverty is a persistent problem, particularly rural poverty and basic needs poverty at the village level.

UNDP's work in trying to address these issues occurs at several levels. We work on the policy level and we also try to work directly with the beneficiaries. But in terms of reaching the direct beneficiaries, in terms of reaching villages, in terms of reaching communities, who try to help themselves, there is a need for a special type of attention, - a special direct engagement - , and that is made possible through the SGP programme. The SGP programme works with NGOs, it strengthens the capacities of NGOs, it strengthens the capacity of community organizations, and it makes it possible to reach to the village level, to almost reach to the individual beneficiary level, to address environmental issues and also other issues at the village level.

This is possible because SGP is managed partly separate from UNDP, but also partly linked to UNDP. The separate organization of SGP makes it possible to give very direct assistance to NGOs, very direct assistance to villages, to hundreds of villages. That would not be possible through UNDP's regular programme. But the link to UNDP also makes it possible for this local, village-level assistance to be linked to the larger- scale, national-scale policy work. And through the combination of these two efforts, UNDP and SGP together, make a more comprehensive contribution to the work in the environment and also in other local development issues."