LocationsCall for Proposals: GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP)
Introduction
The Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP) implemented by UNDP, awards grants on a competitive basis for initiatives implemented by civil society organizations, to enable them to implement environmental projects while at the same time supporting poverty reduction and local empowerment objectives.
Global environmental degradation proceeds unimpeded in the World Heritage Site of the Kenya Lakes System in the Great Rift Valley, the marine ecosystem of Southern Kenya in Kwale County, and the arid rangelands of northern Kenya, due to human activity, climate change, and land degradation. Weaknesses in the organizational capacities of communities and community organizations, which seek to address these challenges, prevent them from collectively taking action to strengthen and maintain the resilience of these socio-ecological landscapes. Local resource-dependent rural and coastal poor communities are at the receiving end of the negative and devastating effects of habitat destruction, climate change, and biodiversity loss.
To address this challenge, the Seventh Operational Phase of the GEF Small Grants Program in Kenya aims to empower communities and organizations to take collective action through a participatory landscape planning and management approach aimed at enhancing socio-ecological resilience by producing global environmental and local sustainable development benefits. The project will do so by strengthening adaptive management capabilities, increasing technical know-how, developing planning and organizational skills, and strengthening innovation and experimentation capacities to enhance civil society’s capacity to build landscape resilience. The project will also invest in strategic projects to build knowledge and capacity and generate synergies among other smaller local actions, to build long-term ecological social and economic resilience in landscapes. This project aims to promote synergies, coordination, and collaboration among local actions to accrue results and acquire a critical mass of practitioners to achieve landscape-level resilience. The project has a strong commitment to attending the specific needs of vulnerable sub-groups within the communities that often tend to be placed on the margin of social processes - women, youth, and indigenous communities - by supporting their productive and sustainable initiatives and enhancing their participation in multi-stakeholder structures.
Project Objective
The objective of the project is to enhance and maintain the socio-ecological resilience of selected landscapes and seascapes through community-based initiatives in selected ecologically sensitive areas of Kenya for global environmental benefits and sustainable development.
The GEF-funded alternative will be delivered through two Components:
Component 1- Resilient rural landscapes for sustainable development and contribution to global environmental protection
Component 2- Landscape governance and adaptive management for upscaling and replication
SGP seeks proposals aligned to the 3 outcomes of Component 1, and one outcome of Component 2. A description of the outcomes appears below. Examples of typology of projects that will be considered for funding under each output is highlighted in Annex 1.
Under Component 1, the following outcomes are anticipated:
1.1 Ecosystem services and biodiversity within targeted landscapes and seascapes are enhanced through multi-functional land-use systems.
The project recognizes that one of the effective means of engaging various levels of community and government is through improved and integrated land use, while ensuring connectivity. This involves strategies of rehabilitating degraded ecosystems, fostering a shared understanding on the importance of ecosystem services and how best to manage them, and contributing to improved and sustainable land use.
1.2: The sustainability of production systems in the target landscapes is strengthened through integrated agro-ecological practices.
The project acknowledges that agriculture offers an entry by which sustainability measures can be promoted while supporting livelihoods. It is also a sector where there is room for innovation and sharing of best practices. Given that the project is primarily targeting rural communities, agriculture is the most relevant sector to address, as it is directly connected to livelihoods, sustenance, connection to the land and to traditions, supports the sense of community, and is most closely associated to the use of natural resources.
1.3 Livelihoods of communities in the target landscapes and seascapes are improved by developing eco-friendly, climate-adaptive, small-scale community enterprises with clear market linkages
The project seeks to strengthen communities’ livelihoods by promoting and upscaling sustainable enterprises. With its rich cultural heritage and diverse landscapes, the communities under this project have a plethora of activities at the local scale that could yield greater socioeconomic and environmental benefits. These enterprises need accompaniment, organizational development, and support in business planning to make initiatives profitable. They also require the opportunity to pilot various activities to see which can be managed by the communities, and which can be viable.