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A signing ceremony for the first five contracts to be funded in Belarus through the Global Environment Facility (GEF)/UNDP Small Grants Programme was held today in the UNDP Office in Belarus.
The Small Grants Programme (SGP) was officially launched in Belarus in summer 2005. The Programme envisages allocating grants up to USD 50,000 to non-governmental and community-based organizations dealing with the environment protection issues.
Three of the signed contracts are to be implemented within two years, the other two – for one year. The largest project is aimed at developing environmentally clean agricultural production at the National park “Narochansky”. The public association “Women for the Restoring of the Naroch Region” (the project initiator) plans to create a model of a 20-hectare large environmental farm on the premises of the based in Svir agricultural lyceum.
The second project will be implemented in the Borisov district of the Minsk region. Its objective is inventorying, repackaging and relocating to new stock facilities of waste pesticides in the volume of 200 tons, as well as cleaning their former location area. The project is aimed at facilitating the implementation of both the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the national programme on their utilization (according to statistical data, at present about two thousand tons of these pesticides are stocked in Belarus; four thousand tons of waste pesticides are land disposed at seven locations presenting a serious danger to people’s health and the environment).
The other contracts signed today are targeted at developing the youth movement for protection of the local reservoirs, landscape and biodiversity, conserving low-lying marshes biodiversity through their sustainable utilization, as well as designing and constructing a tourist eco-village in Belarus.
Two more projects are currently under consideration by the Commission for International Technical Cooperation under the Council of Ministers of Belarus. The first one is on elaboration of a model of sustainable land tenure for agricultural enterprises. The second project is aimed at involving the local population and the Polesie area school pupils into practical activities on biodiversity conservation.
As the UN Resident Coordinator/UNDP Resident Representative in Belarus Cihan Sultanoglu underlined, the GEF/UNDP Small Grants Programme, with its 2005-2010 implementation strategy approved by the Government of Belarus, will continue providing assistance to local initiatives aimed at biodiversity conservation, climate change abatement, protection of international waters, prevention of land degradation and reduction of the impact of persistent organic pollutants on people’s health and the environment.
The contracts signing ceremony was attended by representatives of Belarus’ Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, State Science and Technology Committee, Committee for Energy Efficiency under the Council of Ministries of Belarus, scientific institutions and non-governmental organizations.
Background: The main objective of the Small Grants Programme is to improve the global environment through concrete initiatives and actions at local and regional level. Support of local population is a key factor of the SGP success in the world. By present non-governmental organizations and local initiatives in 93 countries have been supported through the SGP which was initiated in 1992.
Press-release UNDP in Belarus
For additional information please contact the national coordinator of the Small Grants Programme in Belarus Alexander Levchenko at ph./fax +375 172 04 01 86, E-mail or the SGP in Belarus assistant Andrei Dementiev at ph. +375 172 04 01 86, E-mail .
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