In a meeting with UNDP in Chile last week, Mr. Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD expressed his support to the work of the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) in land degradation in Chile and emphasized the importance of its work with local communities. During the event, Alejandra Alarcón, the National Coordinator of the GEF Small Grants Programme presented a summary of the results of the program and highlighted a project with the European Union (UE) that works on desertification applying the SGP methodology to involve communities.

At the meeting Mr. Gnacadja, UE representatives, Small Grants Programme National Steering Committee members, UNDP Officials, and experts on Desertification shared the lessons learned and possibilities to expand the work of SGP in Chile. Mr Gnacadja was impressed with the significant dedication in time to the Program by the National Steering Committee members as well as with their high technical competency.

The Executive Secretary also informed the attendants that the new scenario of the STAR GEF considers resources dedicated specifically to land degradation and desertification, and that he was very supportive of the participation of SGP in this type of projects, especially with poor communities. As a result of the meeting the Latin American chief of UNCCD proposed to apply the recently defined desertification indicators in one of the first pilot studies for these indicators in the world.