SGP is rooted in the belief that global environmental problems can best be addressed if local people are involved and there are direct community benefits and ownership. SGP is convinced that with small amounts of funding, members of local communities can undertake activities that will make a significant difference in their lives and environments, with global benefits, in contrast with top-down, expert-reliant development interventions.
Participation, democracy, flexibility, and transparency are cornerstones of the SGP approach. The programme encourages and supports the participation of communities, local people, NGOs, CBOs (community-based organizations), and other stakeholders in all aspects of programme planning, design and implementation:
- The formulation of country programme strategies;
- The development, presentation, and execution of project concept papers and proposals;
- Building partnerships to broaden the scope of the programme and to communicate and replicate successful SGP initiatives;
- Raising public awareness of global environmental issues and changing public attitudes and practices;
- Influencing government environmental policies and programmes; and
- Mobilizing in-kind and monetary resources to support project and programme sustainability.
The flexible decentralized structure of SGP encourages maximum country and community-level ownership and initiative:
Grants are made directly to support community-based initiatives, in recognition of the key role they play as a resource and constituency for environment and development concerns.
GEF SGP Ukraine adopts the SGP global strategic framework to specific country conditions. SGP country strategies take into account existing national biodiversity and climate change strategies and plans, as well as those relating to national development and poverty eradication. It puts emphasis on biodiversity, climate change, international waters thematic areas and, particularly Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Lugansk and Rivne regions are adopted as a geographic concentration to ensure synergy and impact as well as to facilitate programme administration.
Once a country is accepted to host an SGP programme, a voluntary National Steering Committee (NSC) is formed. The NSC provides the major substantive contribution to and oversight of the programme. The NSC typically comprises representatives from local CBOs/NGOs, government, academia, UNDP, indigenous peoples' organizations, the private sector and the media.
Monitoring and Evaluation
SGP's monitoring and evaluation system is intended to provide stakeholders and partners with information about the status and results of individual projects, the progress of country programmes and the achievement of overall programme objectives.
SGP views monitoring and evaluation above all as a participatory and forward-looking process that enables capacity building and learning, maintains accountability, promotes sustainability, and provides opportunities to identify and communicate lessons learned from project and programme experiences. In the case of SGP, monitoring and evaluation are required at three levels - project, country and global.
At the heart of the SGP model, funding decisions are informed, owned and implemented by local people.
The Project Concepts and the Project Proposals should be developed in Ukrainian language. There are no special time limits for sending the Project Concepts. The GEF SGP in Ukraine receives the Projects concepts the whole year through.
Country Programme Strategy for the GEF OP 7
Programme Strategy for the GEF OP 6
GEF SGP Guidelines (Ukrainian)
Project proposal form (Ukrainian)
Project budget form (Ukrainian)
List of indicators for SGP global reporting
Please, consider the following questions developing a project proposal (Ukrainian)