Saint Lucia
Port Moresby/Rome: In Papua New Guinea’s rainforests, home to 191 mammal species and 750 types of birds, villagers depend on forests for survival. In Saint Lucia, a small island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, fishers face unpredictable seas and declining catches. Across the Sahel’s semi-arid expanses, herders and farmers struggle with shrinking lands. For these communities, hope arrives through over $300 million in projects approved by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) at its 42nd Board meeting in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea’s capital, from June 30 to July 3, 2025.
Designed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), based in Rome, these initiatives target forestry management in Papua New Guinea, fisheries transformation in Saint Lucia, and land restoration in the Sahel.
FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said these projects will make a difference to the lives and livelihoods of these vulnerable communities, especially in the current global context of overlapping and complex crises due to climate extremes and other shocks. He added that FAO appreciates the unwavering trust that the GCF and Member Countries place in FAO’s professional capacity to provide the required technical expertise to strengthen resilience and safeguard the livelihoods of the most vulnerable, noting that the FAO-GCF partnership continues to be critical for climate investments in agrifood systems to deliver science-based concrete solutions to countries and communities where they are needed most, leaving no one behind.
In Papua New Guinea, where 78 per cent of the land is covered by tropical rainforests, a $63.4 million project under the REDD+ initiative supports the National REDD+ Strategy 2017–2027. The funding, part of GCF’s results-based payments programme, recognises the country’s reduction of 17 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from 2014 to 2016, comparable to removing over 3 million cars from roads for a year. Villagers will benefit from agroforestry, sustainable fuelwood and charcoal production, community pole and timber plantations, and natural forest restoration. A long-time advocate for REDD+ since 2008, Papua New Guinea has prioritised forest conservation through FAO and UN-REDD support. The project emphasises benefit sharing, stakeholder engagement, and capacity building, ensuring locals in biodiversity-rich forests, which serve as carbon sinks, can sustain their livelihoods.
In Saint Lucia, located south of Martinique and north of Saint Vincent in the eastern Caribbean Sea, the $16.7 million FISH-ADAPT project targets 75,000 people—41 per cent of the population—including marine fishers, sea moss farmers, fish vendors, processors, and inland aquaculture farmers. Fishers, battling rising temperatures and declining fish stocks, will gain access to weather data, upgraded landing sites, and sustainable offshore fishing practices. The project fosters a circular economy to reduce waste, enhance resource efficiency, and diversify incomes, building resilience against changing rainfall patterns and warming seas. For Saint Lucia’s communities, reliant on fisheries amidst climate vulnerabilities, the initiative offers a chance to adapt and thrive.
In the Sahel, spanning Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal, the $222 million Scaling-Up Resilience in Africa’s Great Green Wall (SURAGGWA) initiative supports 100 million residents, a quarter of whom depend on pastoralist livelihoods. With 70 per cent of rural communities relying on rainfed agriculture, the project, FAO’s largest multi-country proposal, builds on the Action Against Desertification Programme. It will restore degraded lands with native species, develop value chains for climate-resilient non-timber forest products, and strengthen Great Green Wall institutions for sustainable coordination and monitoring. Aligning with the African Union’s goal to restore 100 million hectares and create 10 million jobs, SURAGGWA helps herders and farmers facing poverty and resource competition, while sequestering carbon to mitigate climate change.
This $300 million approval, the largest green fund in GCF’s history, stems from FAO-led readiness projects and technical collaborations, bringing FAO’s GCF portfolio to over $1.8 billion. For Papua New Guinea’s forest communities, Saint Lucia’s fishers, and the Sahel’s pastoralists, these funds are more than investments—they are lifelines to preserve their lands, seas, and futures in the face of climate challenges.
– global bihari bureau
