The Small Grants Program of the Global Environment Facility announces a Call for Proposals / The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Program (SGP)

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP) provides nongovernmental and community‐based organizations (NGOs/CBOs) in developing countries with grants to enable them to tackle climate change, conserve biodiversity, protect international waters, reduce the impact of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), and prevent land degradation. With these environment‐centered “grant projects” the programme also seeks to generate sustainable livelihoods and reduce poverty in the world’s neediest countries and regions. The SGP motto is “community action with global impact!”. The GEF SGP works in 126 countries all over the world. SGP Moldova was opened in 2012 and started financing projects in 2013. Since then, it has succeeded in funding and providing technical support for more than 12 grantee projects. The Programme is a GEF corporate programme, implemented by UNDP and executed by UNOPS. Effective partnerships are key for SGP Moldova’s success. From management structures and funding mechanisms to grass‐roots action, partnerships permeate all aspects of SGP operations. NGOs/CBOs are viable channels to promote community empowerment, ownership and participation in development and can thus be considered as the most significant SGP partner. They can play an effective role in better understanding the local community's needs and demands and must be given a full chance to fulfill their responsibilities towards those communities. The principle objectives of the Small Grants Programme are to:                                                                                                  

Develop community-level strategies and implement technologies that could reduce threats to the global environment if they are replicated over time.
Gather lessons from community-level experience and initiate the sharing of successful community-level strategies and innovations among CBOs and NGOs, host governments, development aid agencies, GEF and others working on a regional or global scale.
Build partnerships and networks of stakeholders to support and strengthen community, NGO and national capacities to address global environmental problems and promote sustainable development.
Ensure that conservation and sustainable development strategies and projects that protect the global environment are understood and practiced by communities and other key stakeholders