The Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fa­cil­i­ty (GEF) is hop­ing to en­cour­age Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) across the re­gion to achieve pol­lu­tion-free en­vi­ron­ments.

This was one of the main goals an­nounced yes­ter­day, as GEF launched their Im­ple­ment­ing Sus­tain­able Low and Non-Chem­i­cal De­vel­op­ment in Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (IS­LANDS) project at the Hilton Trinidad in Port-of-Spain.

The project, which is head­ed by Basel Con­ven­tion­al Re­gion­al Cen­tre (BCRC), seeks to re­duce chem­i­cal waste and en­cour­age more sus­tain­able waste man­age­ment in small­er is­lands.

The project cov­ers SIDS in the Caribbean, In­di­an Ocean and Pa­cif­ic Ocean. It has sev­en projects that are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed in 2022 and are sched­uled to end in 2027.

GEF chem­i­cals and waste co­or­di­na­tor and se­nior en­vi­ron­men­tal spe­cial­ist Anil Sookdeo said one of the project’s main goals is to lead the SIDS to pol­lu­tion-free en­vi­ron­ments.

“IS­LANDS presents a vi­sion of a tran­si­tion to ze­ro waste, pol­lu­tion-free is­lands, and we will be the first step to­wards achiev­ing this vi­sion. We heard from Trinidad and To­ba­go Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (SWM­COL) that the land­fills in Trinidad and by ex­ten­sion, in oth­er is­lands, are filled and past their ca­pac­i­ty. IS­LANDS’ goal is to one day, elim­i­nate the need for that,” Sookdeo said.

Waste man­age­ment spe­cial­ist at the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment and the Unit­ed Na­tion’s Stock­holm Con­ven­tion pres­i­dent, Keima Gar­diner, rep­re­sent­ed Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who was un­able to at­tend.

Gar­diner not­ed that the Caribbean is­lands face some of the di­rect im­pacts of en­vi­ron­men­tal change, such as cli­mate change and pol­lu­tion, which re­quire com­plex so­lu­tions. She said the GEF IS­LANDS Pro­gramme of­fers so­lu­tions.

“The im­ple­men­ta­tion of these pro­posed ac­tiv­i­ties un­der the pro­gramme will demon­strate the much-need­ed move­ment of sci­ence to ac­tion, where the ef­fects and im­pacts of these harm­ful chem­i­cals are mit­i­gat­ed and man­aged ac­cord­ing­ly,” she said.

Gar­diner al­so said the project di­rect­ly con­tributes to all 17 of the Unit­ed Na­tions sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goals and has to­tal fund­ing of US$150 mil­lion, of which US$31 mil­lion is from grant fund­ing.

Basel Con­ven­tion Re­gion­al Cen­tre di­rec­tor Jew­el Batchas­ingh said they were ready to go.

“We look for­ward to work­ing with the im­ple­ment­ing agen­cies of the Food and Agri­cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank and the Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme. The ca­pac­i­ty of the BCRC Caribbean to work with dif­fer­ent im­ple­ment­ing agen­cies and meet their in­di­vid­ual fidu­cia­ry has been no easy task, but the chal­lenge was ac­cept­ed and ad­e­quate­ly con­quered,” she said.

The main tar­get coun­tries are An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, the Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Cu­ba, Do­mini­ca, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lu­cia, Suri­name and T&T. Grena­da and Ja­maica are set to join the list soon.