Enhancing Local Environmental Management and Finance Capacity

Working on the front lines of environment and poverty challenges, local actors understand prevailing conditions “on the ground” and are well positioned to identify interventions with the highest probability of success. Often, however, these same actors lack the business, technical, and management skills to advance and scale up their work.

Local actors require capacity development in a range of areas, from public expenditure management and business development to partnership and networking skills, from resource diversification and adaptation techniques to documenting local practices and mapping assets. Local actors need to have the tools and skills to manage projects and programmes accountably in a way that can be communicated both to local stakeholders and to governments and donors and that provides for sustainability of the activity when funding flows decrease. Such skills are also essential to turn these projects and programmes into successful enterprises in which local ecosystem assets become sustainable sources of income and opportunity. Helping to develop these skills is one of the first steps in localizing MDGs 1 and 7.

UNDP is undertaking the following activities in this area:

• Building local capacity to understand and demand access to natural resources and financing mechanisms for nature-based projects and enterprises. This includes capacity in the areas of resource rights, effective participation, and demonstration and documentation of success.
• Building local capacity to scale up sustainable implementation of natural resources and environment and energy programmes, enterprises, and service delivery. This includes capacity in the areas of institutions, finances, business development, social mobilization, networking, and leadership development.
• Combining and sequencing community financing for access to broader financial opportunities. Community financing can be usefully combined and sequenced: small grants, delivered through the GEF Small Grants Programme (GEF-SGP) can be combined with the savings of self-help groups – especially of women – and sequenced with microcredit and revolving funds. In other cases, medium grants and local environment funds follow on the impetus provided by small grants. Ultimately, these efforts can lead to access to broader financing opportunities, such as social impact investments and those involving climate and ecosystem finance.