Having recognized the important role that households and communities can play in addressing global environment issues, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) initiated Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP) in 1992. The GEF SGP provides community based organizations (CBOs) and local non-government organizations (NGOs) with grants to enable them to tackle local environmental issues of the GEF’s focal areas on the basis of solutions appropriate to local conditions.

The GEF SGP Viet Nam started its operation in 1999. Almost all of projects fall into such areas as biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adaptation and prevention of land degradation and desertification. Recipients of these projects are local NGOs and CBOs. The projects have the focus: to pilot relevant strategies and techniques for tackling local environmental issues and sustainable natural resource use by adopting the community based approach. The projects attach great importance to the objective of building capacity of local communities and people. The resources provided for SGP projects are small (USD 50,000 per project). Project results have been evaluated highly by local authorities and agencies. The SGP projects has significantly contributed to building the capacity of local civil societies and increasing their profile. Over 15 years of its implementation in Viet Nam, the SGP is one of the few effective funded programmes to provide civil societies and CBOs with resources to enable their implementation of projects/ activities in environmental protection and sustainable livelihood development on the basis of sustainable natural resource management and use. As of October 2015, the SGP Viet Nam has provided grants for a total of 140 projects implemented in 104 communes of 40 provinces throughout the country.