Small Grant Program (SGP) India

The OP-7 phase of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme in India (SGP India) enables communities and organisations in some of the most vulnerable and least developed areas to enhance their socio-ecological resilience, focusing on collective action through participatory landscape planning. SGP India is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) as the National Host Institution. In Mawlai C&RD Block, BIDS has used the programme to broker 100 formal ten-year land lease agreements between tenant farmers and landowners, and to support 372 vermi-beds across 318 households. In all, 1,624.44 hectares are now under sustainable practice — 106.2% of the programme's target — and farmers producing vermi-compost have a guaranteed first buyer: BIDS itself purchases back both the composting worms and the finished manure.