[1]Photo: LendingMemo.com. (CC 2.0.)
Last month witnessed the launch of the first crowdsourcing platform of the United Nations Program for Development in Ecuador—a project called the Small Grants Program [2], which was designed in collaboration with AlliedCrowds [3]. According to organizers, the project is built on “thinking globally and acting locally [4]“:
The program provides grants of up to $50,000 directly to local communities including indigenous people, community-based organizations and other non-governmental groups for projects in Biodiversity, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Land Degradation and Sustainable Forest Management, International Waters and Chemicals.
The crowdsourcing platform is called GreenCrowds [5]. According to its website [6], the project seeks to conserve and restore the environment, among other things:
All greencrowds.org projects are part of the Small Grants Program (SGP) [2], which was born during the Rio Summit in 1992. This is a corporate program of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) [7], implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) [8] and executed by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) [9].
By providing financial and technical support to projects that conserve and restore the environment while enhancing people's well-being and livelihoods, SGP demonstrates that community action can respond to human needs while addressing global environmental problems.
GreenCrowds.org will support communities with innovative and sustainable projects that preserve the environment, providing support to thousands of families living in rural areas. The platform was launched on November 20, and hopes to raise $80,000 to support the dreams of eight communities until January 2016.
The communities [10] that will benefit from the initiative are located in Chimborazo, Manabí, Pichincha, Intag, Chontapunta, Pastaza, and El Tambo.