The AEWA Small Grants Fund becomes operational!

The AEWA Secretariat is calling for applications from African countries for the Small Grants Fund cycle 2010. The deadline for submission of project proposals is 30 April 2010. For more information on the Small Grants Fund and to download the Operational Guidelines and necessary application forms, please click here.

As decided by the Parties at their fourth Meeting (MOP4) in 2008, for the first time, the AEWA core budget 2009-2012 foresees 20,000 € per year towards Small Grants projects in Africa. In addition, the Secretariat received a voluntary contribution from the Government of France earmarked for additional Small Grants projects in African countries enabling the Small Grants Fund to become operational as of 2010.

Since the AEWA Strategic Plan 2009-2017 (under Objective 5) aims at activating the Small Grants Fund and disbursing at least 100,000 € annually to developing countries for the implementation of AEWA in the long term, the Secretariat hopes to be able to maintain the Small Grants Fund on the basis of an annual cycle as well as being able to extend the call for tenders to other sub-regions of AEWA in future. This will however depend on further voluntary contributions in the coming years.

Contracting Parties were requested through Resolution 4.7 to provide financial resources for the successful and efficient operation of the Small Grants Fund. The AEWA Secretariat would therefore like to make a strong plea to all Contracting Parties and partner organisations to seriously consider supporting the AEWA Small Grants Fund through a voluntary contribution, either to enable future cycles or in order to extend the current cycle to additional projects or other AEWA sub-regions.

The AEWA Small Grants Fund was established by the first Meeting of the Parties to AEWA in 1999 to facilitate the implementation of the Agreement in developing countries and countries with economies in transition. At its second session in 2002, the Meeting of the Parties reiterated its conviction that a Small Grants Fund could become an extremely useful tool to facilitate the implementation of the Agreement; however, due to the lack of funds, it was not able to become operational until MOP4.

If you wish to support the AEWA Small Grants Fund with a voluntary contribution please contact the AEWA Secretariat at [email protected].

For more information please see: