The Small Grants Programme (SGP) is available in many countries and each country has an SGP National Coordinator responsible for coordinating funding applications with NGOs. If your organization is eligible to apply for SGP, then you need to first contact the SGP National Coordinator in your country (a list of information where to find the SGP National Coordinator is given in the later part of this document).
The National Coordinator would assist the applicant NGO to develop a brief concept note on the proposed project and accept it. The National Coordinator pre-screens the concept paper to check if it meets the GEF SGP eligibility criteria and other guidelines as per the Country Programme Strategy (CPS) of the UNDP.
If the concept note is found to be eligible, the National Coordinator would inform the organization to submit a project proposal. In some cases, SGP can issue a planning grant as well at this stage to the proponent that can help develop the full project proposal. Once the proposal is developed and submitted back to the National Coordinator, it is then forwarded to the National Steering Committee (NSC).
NSC is a voluntary committee set up at the country level and it comprises of civil society organizations, as well as representatives of the government, UNDP, the academia, indigenous peoples’ organizations, the private sector and the media. It helps develop the Country Programme Strategy (CPS), considers whether proposals for grants are feasible and meet SGP criteria, and what kind of technical support is needed for implementation. It is also responsible for the final approval of grants, undertaking monitoring and evaluation visits to the projects, providing advice, ensuring proper monitoring and evaluation, helping extract, share and replicate successful SGP projects and practice and promoting SGP at the national and international level.
NSC makes the final decision about the project grant. It may even seek more information from the proponent about a project before sanctioning the grant or even give feedback for further improvisation.
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