Experience Notes & Lessons Learned
Experience notes and lessons learned feedback.
-
Experience Note: Think Regional, Act Local: The GEF’s Small Grants Programme and Nile Project Partnership in Addressing Transboundary Water Issues
- The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP) has been promoting grassroots action to address global environmental concerns. The Nile Transboundary Environmental Action Plan (NTEAP) has funded 179 Micro-grant Projects, 36 School based learning projects and 21 nationally selected community based projects. The question is how to establish a linkage and forge a working relationship between various levels of interventions of GEF, and ensure a most cost-effective mode of action from a GEF standpoint. In 2004, a strategic partnership was developed between SGP and NTEAP to ensure greater impact by the two programs, with an integrated management approach and in a cost-effective way. Through this partnership, SGP’s model was replicated at the regional level by NTEAP through the creation and implementation of a micro-grant component of the regional project. At the global level, the experience of a strategic partnership between a regional IW project and SGP can be replicated by other river/lake basins and regional seas. The significance of the partnership lies in the natural complementarities between a regional project and a locally driven program. NTEAP provides a regional vision and serves a regional forum for community-based actions, while SGP serves a delivery mechanism for local actions.From the SGP point of view, NTEAP provides a regional vision to ensure a coherent regional perspective of community-based actions and serves a regional forum for knowledge transfer. Amir Baker/Sulan Chen
