Community Resilience through Integrated Landscape Management
The goal of this Signature Programme, Community Resilience through Integrated Landscape Management, and that of the UNDP-GEF Community Resilience and Sustainability (CRS) team, is to empower community organizations and networks to achieve inclusive, resilient and sustainable development and develop local solutions for global environment management.
UNDP-GEF's capacity in Community Resilience and Sustainability is centered on its work with community-based organizations and local NGOs to address the barriers (capacity, technical, governance, and legal, political, financial) to achieving resilient communities and landscapes. This work is designed to maximize opportunities for the poorest and socially excluded to gain voice and influence in governance processes. The CRS Team works in over 125 countries to support community-based organizations in the implementation of 4000 projects representing an investment of over USD 400 million. A small team of highly skilled HQ staff and over 200 locally based project staff, including National Coordinators for each country, works with UNDP Country Office colleagues around the world, supporting community-based approaches to building landscape resilience and its attendant global environmental benefits.
More information on relevant UNDP supported programmes can be obtained through the following links:
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Local Solutions
Under this outcome area UNDP is working to promote local solutions for the global environment through small grants projects.
UNDP-GEF has been a stalwart supporter of GEF SGP since the beginning, first as a proponent of a special GEF window for civil society organizations in the global south, and then as its implementing agency for over 20 years. Over the last two decades, GEF SGP, working closely with UNDP COs, has awarded over 14,500 grants, supporting community-based initiatives to achieve global environmental benefits in: Biodiversity Conservation, Climate Change Mitigation, International Waters Protection, Sustainable Land Management and Sound Chemicals Management.
GEF SGP channels up to USD 50,000 directly to communities as a fast and efficient delivery modality. GEF SGP provides financing directly to poor and vulnerable communities to catalyze innovation in addressing local and global environmental and development challenges. The programme's decentralized governance and decision making structure is designed to foster civil society and community initiative and ownership in support of sustainable development objectives.
As a result of the 2009 GEF policy on upgrading GEF SGP Country Programmes, UNDP-GEF is assisting an initial cohort of ten Country Programmes in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cost Rica, Ecuador, India, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, and Philippines, with total resources of USD 41 .6 million to transition to greater autonomy and capacity for resource mobilization, strategic programming, participation in policy discussions and advocacy.
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Community Resilience
Under this outcome area UNDP is working to promote community resilience through integrated landscape management.
UNDP-GEF empowers communities to implement participatory landscape planning and adaptive management to enhance community and ecosystem resilience and sustainability. In support of this work, UNDP-GEF promotes combining and sequencing different financial support tools, including small-medium grants, micro-medium finance, micro insurance, local environmental funds, etc. UNDP recognizes that smallholders and the rural poor are the primary agents of change at community and landscape levels, as well as for broader societal transformation. Worldwide, there are approximately 450 million farms of two hectares or less supporting a population of approximately 2.2 billion. Through their ordinary, everyday activities, these smallholders play a decisive role in the food security of their countries and the livelihoods and incomes of their communities, as well as in shaping the state of the biodiversity and ecosystem services on which they depend.
Projects
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Community-Based Adaptation
It is increasingly recognized that small communities are likely to be the most severely affected by climate change impacts and yet are least equipped to cope and adapt. In response to this, UNDP is supporting community-based projects that seek to enhance the resiliency of communities, and/or the ecosystems on which they rely, to climate change impacts. It will essentially create small-scale/policy laboratories and generate knowledge about how to achieve adaptation at the local level.
For example, ten participating countries (Bangladesh, Bolivia, Guatemala, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Samoa, and Vietnam) each developed, planned and implemented a portfolio of community-level adaptation projects.