SVG to receive US$4.2m. to tackle environment issues

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Global Environment Facility-Small Grants Programme (GEF-SGP) officials Dr Reynold Murray and Giles Romulus held a one day consultation on Monday, August 16, at The Grenadine House to discuss how to maximize US$4.2 million of the UNDP (STAR) or System for Transparent Allocation of Resources funds.{{more}}

Dr Murray and Romulus met with governmental, non-governmental and community representatives to inform them about the objective of GEF which he noted was about helping community groups make an impact on the environment.

Further explaining the dynamics of the STAR, Dr Murray pointed out that it was best for this country to focus on one specific environmental issue and address it from a national perspective such as deforestation. He said that by utilizing this method, the country would have a more national environmental focus and then be able to tackle other “synergies” or issues that were spill offs from deforestation such as watershed management and landslides.

Dr Murray in his deliberation noted that the new US$4.2 million STAR funds would be best channeled over time through lump sums of $250,000 over a four-year period to tackle issues such as climate change, biodiversity, land degradation and emission of air pollutants. He, however, noted that a stipulated criterion for the STAR funds was for the government to make an input into the funding of projects so that they would have a financial stake in environmental matters of the projects that was being carried out in the country.

Meanwhile, in his presentation about the differences in the Small, Medium and Full-size projects, Giles Romulus pointed out that many of the OECS islands have a poor performance as it relates to their capacity for accessing funds. Romulus, who specifically heads the Barbados and the OECS territory of the Small Grant Facility, said that the Moore Study and Harris Report conducted on the UNDP GEF programme revealed that many community groups have a high culture of visual and oral literacy but poor literary skills. He noted that this may be a critical factor in groups being unable to write up projects to receive funding compared to the Latin American region which had a better capacity.

The Report/Study also pointed out that the variance in poverty levels in OECS countries as compared to Latin American territories was an influential factor in more professionally skilled persons being unable to volunteer their time to conduct volunteer work.

He said that it was already deliberated in other countries that the OPTION 4 initiative whereby a paid person would assist community based groups was the best choice to help the grassroot organisations utilize the UNDP GEF funds.

Romulus in his presentation wrapped up by stating that more professionals with university knowledge needed to lend their expertise to grassroot community based groups as this was what made many of the Latin American countries successful at projects funded by the UNDP.

The decision to make to choose and finalize OPTION 4 as the model for the programme must be made by the decision by August 30.