Four grantees from the Small Grants Programme (SGP) are among the winners of the Inclusive Global Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly Challenge Programme. The aim of the program is to highlight the GEF’s support for community-based climate and nature projects led by Indigenous Peoples, women, and youth.

The 23 winners of the Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Programme were announced at the GEF Assembly held in late August in Canada, where they had the opportunity to share their experiences in a number of panels and sessions. The winning civil society organizations supported by SGP in Antigua and Barbuda, Madagascar and Tunisia will each receive a grant of up to US$100,000, besides gaining access to networking, training, and knowledge exchange opportunities through the GEF.

Adopt a Coastline in Antigua and Barbuda

Adopt a Coastline is a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to restoring and protecting coastal ecosystems in Antigua and Barbuda, specially by removing litter and marine debris. In 2018, SGP supported its Youth Steward Project, the first of its kind in the country to train young people from local communities to become coastal stewards. Over 60 Youth Stewards covered 20 miles of coastline to remove 15,000 bags of trash as part of the project.

The youth created, installed and managed bins to keep the coastline clean, besides replanting native trees to protect the nesting sites of endangered sea turtles, as well as resident and migratory birds. The marine debris removed from the coastline was transformed into circle economy products, such as jewelry, artworks and household products, which are sold for financial sustainability.

Adopt a Coastline will use the prize from the Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Programme to fund a new Community Coastal Stewardship Wellness Initiative, focused on training women and girls as coastal stewards in Antigua and Barbuda, besides expanding the project across the Caribbean to three new islands.

Find out more about this and other projects that SGP supports in Antigua and Barbuda.

JADD Madagascar

JADD Madagascar (Jeunes Actifs pour le Développement Durable, or Active Youth for Sustainable Development) is a non-profit organization that works on natural resource management through a network of nearly 600 local communities in Madagascar to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in the country. The organization have developed a social inclusion strategy to involve vulnerable groups in natural resource management and enable them to play an active part in the sustainable development of their territories.

SGP has supported JADD Madagascar through the Promoting Inclusive Approaches to Nature-based Solutions Initiative, which aims to engage and empower youth, women and Persons with Disabilities to promote local actions focused on nature-based solutions to preserve ecosystems and build community resilience to climate change. The project has trained around 1,000 young people from across the country on good environmental practices, natural resource management and green entrepreneurship. Recycling, planting and maintaining tree nurseries, permaculture, and ecotourism are among the activities conducted.

JADD Madagascar will use the prize from the Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Programme to strengthen the climate resilience of vulnerable groups by promoting nature-based solutions through the valorization of youth-led research and innovation, the restoration and preservation of natural ecosystems, and the scaling up of agroecology and other climate adaption and mitigation alternatives at the local level.

Find out more about this and other projects that SGP supports in Madagascar.

Les Amis de CAPTE Tunisie (LACT)

LACT has been working to achieve three main objectives in Tunisia: the development of agroforestry; the protection, conservation, and restoration of biodiversity; and the promotion of solidarity between and with farmers. The organization has been implementing the C6 initiative since 2019 to improve the climate resilience of Tunisia's agricultural sector by introducing and promoting the cultivation of carob trees in agroforestry and agroecology, which is a nature-based solution for agricultural transition as the country deals with the impacts of climate change. Since January 2023, SGP has been supporting LACT to scale up the initiative to other regions across the country.

The C6 initiative has already planted over 100 hectares of carob trees in four governorates in Tunisia, engaging 50 farmers and their families, over 200 students, 20 women entrepreneurs specialized in tree nurseries, 10 researchers, as well as an agricultural development group and three civil society organizations. Carob is a drought and pest tolerant species and planting the trees contribute to fighting erosion and land degradation. Its fruit and seeds also have several culinary uses, which have been used to provide income-generating activities for local communities.

LACT will use the prize from the Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Programme to expand this project further, including the creation of a database to monitor and determine the value of ecosystem services generated by the plantations, as well as the organization of 10 agroecology workshops in agricultural colleges and three regional technical and scientific conferences to bring together experts from the Mediterranean.

Find out more about this and other projects that SGP supports in Tunisia.

Belize Wildlife & Referral Clinic (BWRC)

BWRC is a non-profit organization founded in 2011 as a wildlife veterinary and rehabilitation clinic and teaching institution. With support from SGP, it launched an outreach and educational programme to reduce illegal wildlife trafficking and biodiversity loss resulting from human-wildlife conflict.

The programme has certified 385 wildlife ambassadors, including enforcement officers, Indigenous leaders, women and youth. It also runs a 24/7 hotline service to respond to wildlife emergences and prevent conflicts between people and wildlife. The programme is also working on reducing the transmission of diseases from wildlife to humans by educating people about the One Health approach and the connection between human health, animals and the environment, to help them stay safe while being part of the solution.

BWRC will use the prize from the Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Programme to expand its Wildlife Ambassador Programme, aiming to engage more local communities, Indigenous Peoples and enforcement officers, as well as civil society organizations and schools across the country.

Find out more about this and other projects that SGP supports in Belize.

Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Programme

The Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Programme is funded by the GEF’s two climate change adaptation funds – the Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund – which have been providing targeted funding to meet the needs of the world’s most vulnerable countries for over 20 years. This initiative builds on the Challenge Programme for Adaptation Innovation, which has already provided two rounds of seed funding for innovative projects that address the climate crisis.

A flagship initiative of the GEF, SGP has been implemented by the United Nations Development Programme since 1992. Over the past three decades, SGP has delivered more than US$750 million in project funding to over 27,000 community-based projects addressing global environmental issues in 136 countries. It is currently active in 127 countries, including 37 Small Islands Developing States and 40 Least Developed Countries.