The Eighth Operational Phase of the GEF Small Grants Program in the Philippines (SGP8) continues its implementation as the team conducted the Landscape Roundtable Committee (LRTC) meetings in Aurora, Quezon, Calamianes Group of Islands, and Siargao Island Protected Landscape and Seascape last September to October 2026.
The LRTC is a multi-stakeholder platform (MSP) within the SGP8 that facilitates technical assistance, capacity building, policy dialogue, and information exchange between government entities and community organizations. The LRTC is critical to the SGP8 achieving integrated landscape and seascape management and ensuring inclusive governance.
Through these first ever meetings between the LRTC members, individual volunteer experts coming from government and civil society convened to discuss the strategic grant proposals from each of their respective landscapes and assist in the review of these proposals in relation to specific areas of programming and partnership development and provision of technical guidance in specialized areas of work.
The LRTC meetings will give direction for the SGP8 Project Management Unit and its National Steering Committee in identifying and approving proposals that will further develop and strengthen the landscape-seascape strategies of each of the SGP8 focal areas. The LRTC will continue to be a technical advisory group within the SGP8 to advocate and facilitate these landscape-seascape strategies and collaborate with the implementation of SGP8 within each of the project sites.
By bringing together these experts coming from national government agencies, concerned local government units, academic institutions and civil society organizations, the SGP8 highlights the importance of collaboration and to leverage its linkages to necessary leaders to further incorporate the program’s strategic initiatives such as biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture and fisheries, waste management, low-carbon energy access, and urban solutions.
The program is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Philippines through the Forest Foundation Philippines as the Project Management Unit, in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources – Biodiversity Management Bureau (DENR-BMB). It will run until October 2028.
