Overview                                                              

The volcanic island of Saint Lucia is 238 square miles and home to 183,627 people. The country gained independence in 1967 and is known for its Piton Mountains and lush rainforests, covering approximately 77% of the island.  Saint Lucia is a founding member of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and hosts the Organisation’s headquarters as well as the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.

Main Initiatives                                                UNDP’s work in Saint Lucia is primarily related to climate change, citizen security and the acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). On the first, UNDP implemented a series of mitigation and adaptation actions focused on sustainable agriculture and renewable energy. In line with work being conducted to improve climate change adaptation, UNDP is also working with local partners to improve disaster recovery planning through strengthening national recovery frameworks. This involves building national capacity to undertake Post Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs) with a focus on empowering women to take a more proactive role in emergencies, aligned with the UNDP Gender Equality Strategy.  The EnGenDER project also supports climate change and recovery planning in St Lucia through the development of budgeted gender-responsive and inclusive sectoral level action plans and M&E for NAPs and NAMAs as well as undertaking recovery capacity assessments.

At the community level, the Global Environment Facility - Small Grants Programme (GEF-SGP) supports local projects in biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, prevention of land degradation, protection of international waters, and reduction of the impact of chemicals and waste. Coastal management will be strengthened through the “Improving Sargassum Management capacities in the Caribbean” project, funded by Japan, supporting the national agencies in dealing with the negative impacts of sargassum.

To advance citizen security in the country, UNDP is implementing the CariSECURE project. The Project's Deputy Team Leader is based in Saint Lucia and supports country-level implementation and engagement with key national stakeholders including the Ministry of Home Affairs and National Security, the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force, the Central Statistical Office, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court and other GOSL agencies represented on the project’s national task force. Notably, under CariSECURE and with support from UNODC, the Saint Lucia National Crime Victimisation Survey (SLNCVS) was completed in July 2020, making Saint Lucia the first country in the English-speaking Eastern Caribbean to complete a comprehensive crime victimisation survey using UN international standards.

CariSECURE also commissioned a Citizen Security Strategies Consultancy in Saint Lucia. Two webinars were delivered geared towards building capacity for developing strategies and programming based on available administrative and survey data in Saint Lucia. The sessions engaged policy analysts and social development practitioners from government and civil society around the following specific objectives:

• Sensitize attendees on the types of citizen security available in Saint Lucia;
• Understand the use, interpretation and correct presentation of citizen security data;
• Provide examples and conduct exercises that allow participants to practically explore ways to use data to inform their program or intervention for improved citizen security;
• Highlight recommendations for Saint Lucia's citizen security strategy.

The consultancy in Saint Lucia was also able to generate a number of citizen security recommendations which were presented to the National Task Force during their meeting in November 2021. Through the engagement with the NTF these recommendations were subsequently shared with the Ministry of Youth Development and the consultant responsible for the Saint Lucia National Youth Policy Action Plan. Some recommendations are expected to be included in the plan, with CariSECURE being included as a supporting partner.

Additionally, through funding from the United Kingdom Criminal Records Office, UNDP is supporting the development of a Crime Information Management System (CIMS) for the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force (RSLPF). This application is broadly based on the framework of the Police Records Management Information System (PRMIS) being implemented through CariSECURE. While the RSLPF was unable to benefit from the deployment of PRMIS due to the imposition of the Leahy Law by the United States Government, UNDP’s support in the development CIMS is ensuring that they will not be left behind in the area of data-driven policing.

UNDP and the Government of the Netherlands signed an agreement on 3 December 2019 to allocate funds to CariSECURE through the Global Programme on Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights for Sustaining Peace and Fostering Development. In efforts to facilitate access to Justice during the pandemic, CariSECURE engaged courts in Saint Lucia and procured court recording and web conferencing equipment to facilitate the holding of virtual court hearings as well as the recording of court proceedings.

UNDP also supported the COVID 19 emergency response in-country and has assisted with the improvement of local health systems through the procurement of PPE for front line workers and ventilators to improve access to care. UNDP has supported the development of a Human and Economic Assessment of Impact (HEAT) Report, with the collaboration of UNICEF and UN Women. 

Additionally, UNDP is technically and financially supporting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) within ten countries and territories that are directly or indirectly linked to the tourism sector or have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, through the Future Tourism project.   With gender equality and empowerment of women at its core, the project seeks to promote economic diversification, job creation and resilience with the “Blue Economy for Green Islands” approach in the tourism sector thereby boosting recovery and supporting the digitally enabled transformation of the business processes and value chains of MSMEs.

Saint Lucia presently benefits from two UN joint programmes:

1.      The SDG Funded Enhancing Resilience and Acceleration of the SDGs in the Eastern Caribbean: Universal adaptive social protection modelled at the community, national and sub-regional levels (UN Women, UNDP, WFP, ILO, UNICEF), which assessed the impact of COVID19 on vulnerable groups, undertook a multidimensional and climate-based vulnerability assessment of the Survey of Living Conditions, analysed the financing requirements for gender-responsive adaptive social protection, and provided critical capacity-building trainings in gender-sensitive budgeting and collecting and integrating climate change data in vulnerability studies

2.      The UN Human Security Trust Fund supported Building Effective Resilience for Human Security in the Caribbean Countries: The Imperative of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in a Strengthened Agriculture (and related Agri/Fisheries Small Business) Sector which seeks to enhance human security by advancing comprehensive and gender-responsive development with a focus on key economic sectors in the Caribbean, including farming, fishing, agri-fisheries and related small business activities (UNDP, UN Women, FAO, ILO), where UNDP worked with the rural network of women farmers to increase the voice of small and women farmers in policy discussions which impact them.

UNDP also continued its partnership with the National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) of St. Lucia and supported the fabrication of prostheses for 10 Saint Lucians. This built on earlier support where training in fabricating prosthetics was provided to persons with disabilities and 23 prosthetics were provided to men, women and children in need.

As part of its mandate to help countries towards the achievement of the SDGs, UNDP has supported SDG mainstreaming by providing key support to the Mainstreaming, Acceleration and Policy Support for the 2030 Agenda (MAPS) process including the undertaking of a Rapid Integrated Assessment and a MAPS Scoping Study. UNDP also provided key leadership to a MAPS mission in 2019, which produced a draft roadmap, currently being finalized in collaboration with the UN Resident Coordinator Office.

Did you know?
Saint Lucia has the most Nobel prize winners per capita!

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