SGP Indonesia

GEF SGP Indonesia is a part of the GEF SGP family (www.thegef.org and http://sgp.undp.org) operating currently in more than 105 countries and working with at least 8000 communities across the world. The inception of the programme was started in 1992 through a pilot phase.

The GEF SGP Indonesia was designed by it National Steering Committee (NSC) to serve its mandate as supporter of civil society and marginalized groups who are fighting the odds to live in harmony with their environment during the dictatorship regime in Indonesia. The NSC members were aware that the community members may feel more at home when visiting the NGO-based office, hence the programme could be accessed at any time without strict protocols of meeting with the Country Implementation Team. Since 1996, the programme was hosted by a national non-profit organization Yayasan Bina Usaha Lingkungan (YBUL)—a Jakarta based NGO working on renewable energy for green entrepreneurs and sustainable development issue. YBUL provided administration umbrella for the National Coordinator’s Team and maintain close collaboration with UNDP, UNOPS, the Minister of Environment and the GEF Focal Point. Today, the GEF SGP Indonesia has supported more than 218 community-based projects working on biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, international water protection and land degradation. Community-based projects on removal and elimination of Persistent Organic Pollutant will soon become additional focal area following the signing of Stockholm Convention by the Government of Indonesia.

Since the Reform era in 1998 that opened up more space for democracy and freedom of expressions, GEF SGP Indonesia opened itself to partner directly with community based, grassroots and indigenous people organizations. Measures of accountability and transparency have been adjusted until today to ensure strategic services for a multilateral environment facility that are accessible and affordable for marginalized community and emerging civil society groups who continue their fight for healthy environment, better living condition, and poverty reduction though participation in natural resources management after 32 years absence in exercising rights and obligations within a democratic society. The programme helped new groups to get registered and in opening joint bank account enjoined with simple book keeping training for representative of communities elected as core team on behalf on the community. Walking together with its partners, the GEF SGP Indonesia receives proposals in community’s own languages with agreed common logical framework of environmental threats reduction through collective actions. It also helps illiterate communities produce video proposal in 2004 to further visualize the principles of Free Prior Informed Consent, participatory project development and risk sharing analysis.

GEF SGP Indonesia is working its best to ensure cost efficient programme management by mobilizing experienced volunteers, experts and network of natural resources management community in Indonesia. Until 2007, the programme has disbursed 3.6 million USD with annual rate of 600,000 USD in grants disbursement and less than 15% management costs. Based on the Resource Allocation Framework enforced within GEF 4, GEF SGP Indonesia was awarded a total of 2.4 million USD to support community initiative in Biodiversity Conservation and mitigation of Climate Change from 2007-2010. The NSC has recommended to concentrate the programme to support critical ecosystem in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java with additional support for small islands in west of Indonesia. The NSC determines geographical and thematic focus based on review of current maps of critical ecosystem, hotspot, social institutions, poverty pockets, and the action plan published in the Indonesian Biodiversity Strategic Action Plans (2003-2020). Current background thinking for vulnerable analysis to ensure impact oriented projects, the NSC also use maps of disaster in relation to climate change issues and ecological based disaster.

Areas of Services: GEF SGP Indonesia have the experiences in giving support for capacity building in terms of project planning; project cycle and implementation analyzes; finance administration for local community; and outreach strategy. The programme strives to share ownership and commitment of learning with its partners by diligent practice of documenting the process of planning, implementation and post project closure to meet the demand for beyond-project-life-cycle support. Leaping forward beyond its limitation, the programme has adopted a before and after documentation approach for partners and country team to build a visual data bank. GEF SGP Indonesia has received an acknowledgement as pioneer in empowered local community institution and helped them to search new resources in facing ecological threats and to communicate their creative efforts to decision maker at higher level. A planning grants of 2,000 USD or more is awarded to community groups and civil society organizations whose concept paper was approved by NSC. The concept must be depicting their innovative ideas and creative approach in delivering global impacts through local actions. The NSC awards a maximum of 50,000 USD to community groups and civil society groups who develop full activities for 18-24 months and who can meet 1:1 co-financing with exception for communities who are not in position to contribute dollar to dollar requirements. The NSC mandated to the National Coordinator to mobilize co-financing at programmatic level to ensure the fulfillment of all GEF goals and immediate objectives as set in GEF SGP Key Achievement Results.