SGP demonstrates that community action can maintain the fine balance between human needs and environmental imperatives.

In August 1998, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) / Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (PAPP) formally launched the Small Grants Programme (SGP) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). In practice, the launching conceded with the incoming of the Second Operational Phase of the global GEF/SGP.
Prior to this initiative, in October 1996, a GEF identification mission to the Palestinian Territories (PT) was conducted, for the purpose of briefing the UNDP and the Palestinian partners on GEF, its modality and eligibility criteria in addition to identifying possibilities for future programming options. These initiative gave rise to priority identification and further development of the five main project areas in:
1. Biodiversity national strategy and action planning.
2. Conservation of wetland and coastal ecosystems in the Mediterranean region.
3. Conservation of agriculture biodiversity
4. Energy efficiency improvements, and
5. NGOs Small Grants Programme in biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and international waters protection.
The first four priorities were implemented under different full and medium size GEF regional projects with the partnership of and joint implementation with the concerned institution of the Palestinian Authority (Environmental Quality Authority, Energy and Natural resources Authority, and Ministry of Agriculture). To facilitate the process of initiating the GEF/SGP in the Palestinian Authority Territories, another start up mission was conducted in 1998. The mission aimed at seeking possible options of Programme structuring and identifying potential areas for GFF/SGP support to the Palestinian NGOs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The fourth operational phase (OP4) was officially launched in the Palestinian Authority “PA” in July 2008 one year after the official start of the same phase in other countries. At the time of preparing this CPS, the activation and continuation of SGP activities in the PA required the establishment of a regional agreement with the National programme in Egypt. Moreover SGP Palestine relied on a grant of 500,000 USD from the UNDP/PAPP programme budget (TRAC), which corresponds to about half of the overall SGP funding during the latest phase.
Since the start of OP4, GEF/SGP oPt is under the umbrella of the GEF/SGP Egypt programme, it is legally binding by this cover to allow SGP operations in Palestine.

Egypt is expected to be upgraded in OP6. Taking into consideration that oPt can not be treated as Egypt (SGP opt total budget from the GEF SGP core budget is approximately 4.5 Million USD) since, a suitable arrangement for Palestine will be explored. One of the options could be be to move the program under another country till oPt have a sustainable programme of its own. Internal discussions have been taking place on country level among related institutions including the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Planning, UNDP-PAPP.
Currently, GEF/SGP is based at the UNDP premises in Ramallah and works in close partnership with the Environmental Quality Authority (EQA). It is managed by the National Coordinator Officer in Charge and directly supported by the Head of the UNDP/ PAPP Natural Unit focal point in the UNDP Jerusalem main office. There is one National Focal Group (NFG) in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, The National Focal Group voluntarily provides technical support for the Programme as well as decision body for projects’ selection. Also, NFG influences the direction of the Programme in determining its eligibility criteria and national priorities. The NFG is composed of five members, 2 of whom are women, of diverse professional calibers and with particular specialty in most of the GEF/SGP focuses.