Independent News Express presents 23 selected civil society organizations across the world which are winners of the Global Environment Facility’s Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Program Inclusive GEF Assembly Challenge Program.
Adoptacoastline
Antigua and Barbuda
Adoptacoastline’s Community Coastal Stewardship project encourages and trains local communities – with a focus on women and youth – to remove marine debris and litter and restore and protect coastal ecosystems. Related activities include education; making, installing, and managing beach bins; planting Indigenous trees to slow coastal erosion; and protecting the nesting sites of endangered turtles and residential and migratory birds.
AIDER
Peru
The Nii Kaniti project, which means “forest and development” in an Indigenous language, is empowering Indigenous Peoples in the Peruvian Amazon to deal with the challenges of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation. It recognizes the power of multi-stakeholder partnerships to mobilize the technical and financial resources that Indigenous communities need to address the main problems that threaten their livelihoods, culture, and harmonious coexistence with nature. The project has provided 350 Indigenous men and women with alternative livelihoods by generating income from bio-businesses.
Base Net
South Sudan
Base Net started its project in 2022 by engaging with communities in the area around the Juba – Nimule Road to enhance environmental protection. The initiative is designed to strengthen knowledge about climate change effects and adaptation benefits. It is intended that rural women and youth in the target areas will be climate resilient and food and income secure, have an ability to predict climate hazards, and be able to advocate for positive local change.
Belize Wildlife & Referral Clinic
Belize
This group’s wildlife ambassador program addresses biodiversity loss and illegal wildlife trafficking, along with measures to reduce the possibility of disease transmission from animals to humans. The program has certified 335 wildlife ambassadors – who include enforcement officers, Indigenous leaders, and women and youth. It also runs a 24/7 hotline service which is designed to respond to wildlife emergences and prevent clashes between human and animal inhabitants.
Central Local de Cooperativas Agropecuarias (CELCCAR)
Bolivia
This group aims to increase the economic and environmental benefits of women beekeepers in Bolivia, with a target of raising incomes by 15 percent and increasing the population of pollinating bees by 30 percent. This project is being managed mainly by women, while the beneficiaries are Indigenous women in Bolivia’s Caranavi Municipality.
Environmental Foundation for Africa
Sierra Leone
The Environmental Foundation for Africa has contributed to building the capacities of local young people in environmental awareness and positive action. It has applied a community tree stewardship approach in which community-based organizations, community members, and local authorities take over the ownership of trees. Its project is intended to both contribute to green infrastructure in the city of Freetown and to create green jobs.
Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversité Marine
Haiti
This group raises environmental awareness through educational programs at both the public and private sector levels. It also monitors coastal and marine resources in cooperation with coastal communities. A key goal of their project is to empower local stakeholders with project activity ownership and provide training to community members.
Forever Costa Rica
Costa Rica
This group is building a rural network of environmental youth entrepreneurs (aged 17-25) in La Cruz, Costa Rica. The network will focus on strengthening the entrepreneurial skills of 30 young adults to create climate-smart business ventures that sustainably use ecosystem-based services around marine and terrestrial protected areas. Other activities will focus on enhancing climate change adaptation and resilience for communities in La Cruz, part of the Central American Dry Corridor.
FOREVER LUNG
Ecuador
This Ecuadorian foundation was created to protect tropical forests where tagua nuts grow wild. It is also designed to improve the living conditions of dozens of communities that collect the nuts and are, therefore, the best guardians of these ecosystems. Planned measures include strengthening the collecting phase of the tagua value chain and improving the living conditions of the collecting communities – with a focus on gender, ancestral knowledge, and the protection of ecosystems.
Green Hope Foundation
Kiribati
The goal of Green Hope Foundation’s project is to provide water security to the marginalized Indigenous community living in the South Tarawa and Beru islands of Kiribati. It is also designed to train young women to become community leaders in promoting climate change resilience. The project utilizes clean tech innovation by using solar-powered distillation to provide drinking water year-round.
Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda
Mexico
This project in Mexico is designed to implement a climate action policy at the subnational level. It includes measures to teach school students and teachers about taking climate action and mobilizing a financing mechanism to support local communities. Targeted beneficiaries include local communities, forest owners, and low-income areas without access to conventional economic development opportunities.
Hand2Earth
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
This farmland restoration initiative is improving crop yields, food security, and Indigenous farmers’ livelihoods in St. Vincent. It is creating sustainable farm systems and empowering beneficiary farmers as community educators. This includes setting up an agriculture and heritage education center in one of the seven target villages to create new bonds within vulnerable communities.
Humy
Colombia
Humy is a French civil society organization created in 2006 which works with local partners to deploy holistic environmental protection strategies that integrate socio-economic dimensions. Its project in Nariño, Colombia is designed to reforest and limit human pressure on forests in order to preserve the páramos ecosystem and water resources. This includes supporting a network of community nurseries composed of peasant and Indigenous associations (70 percent of whom are women).
JADD MADAGASCAR (Jeunes Actifs pour le Développement Durable)
Madagascar
This is a youth-led organization supporting sustainable development goals in Madagascar. In 2020, the group launched an initiative focused on raising awareness among young people about their rights and duties in managing natural resources, including solutions such as recycling, planting and maintaining tree nurseries, permaculture, and ecotourism.
Kenyan Youth Biodiversity Network
Africa (Kenya, Somalia, South Africa, Cameroon, DRC, Uganda, and Tanzania)
The Kenyan Youth Biodiversity Network is the lead under the umbrella of the Africa CSOs Biodiversity Alliance, a pan-African civil society network. Its joint project aims to promote the climate adaptation and resilience of communities in six African countries, through the enhanced use of mangrove ecosystems and terrestrial wetlands as natural solutions to climate change.
Kesho Trust
Tanzania
This group works with local people to create an ecologically valuable community forest in an area where rivers flow into the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. The forest is home to thousands of endangered trees and wildlife species, including the colobus monkey. Kesho Trust’s activities focus on the most vulnerable social groups – Indigenous Peoples, especially elders, youth, and women.
Les Amis de CAPTE Tunisie (LACT)
Tunisia
This Tunisian association pursues three objectives: the development of agroforestry; the protection, conservation, and restoration of biodiversity; and the promotion of solidarity between and with farmers. It aims to improve the climate resilience of Tunisia’s agricultural sector by introducing and promoting agroforestry cultivation of the carob tree and deploying nature-based solutions. This includes creating a database to put a value on the ecosystem services generated by the plantations.
Restoring Rangelands in Kenya’s Southern Rift Valley
Kenya
This project, which began in 2021, supports collaboration with Maasai communities and land owners in the South Rift Valley to restore degraded rangelands. It is designed to enhance ecosystem resilience, improve livelihoods, and conserve biodiversity in the region through water harvesting interventions, women-led grass seed banks, good governance, and community engagement. The Indigenous knowledge of the Maasai, particularly the pastoral resource management approach called ‘Eramatare’, plays a continuous and integral role throughout the project stages.
Rutu Foundation
Global
This international group’s activities are focused on the belief that sustainable rainforest management depends on the resilience of Indigenous communities, which in turn relies on engaging children and youth. Its small grant fund has contributed to Indigenous-government forest protection and restoration in Asia. The Rutu Foundation has also helped Indigenous women and children in Kenya adopt sustainable livelihoods.
Shan Shui
China
This group supports the Convention on Biological Diversity goal to protect 30% of Earth’s lands, oceans, coastal areas, and inland waters by 2030. It works mostly with Indigenous communities in southwest China. Shan Shui adopts community-based conservation to empower and nurture local communities to become the main force in conservation, while respecting traditional wisdom and local culture.
Songkhla Community Foundation
Thailand
This organization is working with coastal communities in eastern Thailand. It is empowering marginalized and vulnerable coastal community groups by helping them play a critical role in driving community-based climate adaptation and the locally-led management of coastal ecosystems, resources, and environments. This includes integrating bottom-up approaches into local development planning.
South Asian Forum for Environment (SAFE)
India
This initiative is designed to naturalize hydroponic float-farming and integrated aquaculture as an adaptive, climate-resilient agricultural method for vulnerable communities in coastal South Asia. It is designed not only to improve people’s nutrition and food and livelihood security, but to create opportunities for agro-business entrepreneurship. Emission-less regenerative farming in float-farm growbags with recycled organic soil-mix is supported by solar desalination and micro-irrigation systems.
U-recycle Initiative Africa
Nigeria
This Nigerian group advances environmental education, a circular economy, youth development, and climate action. Its PlasticWize Fellowship initiative is designed to build the largest campus movement geared towards tackling plastic pollution in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. This initiative is designed to empower university students across Nigeria with the knowledge, tools, and resources to take a stand against marine plastic pollution through proactive, comprehensive, and creative interventions.
