BLUE ECONOMY PROJECTS & INITIATIVES  

UNDP Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean in its commitment to promoting economic diversification, job creation and resilience under a "Blue Economy for Green Islands" approach continues to seek innovative solutions to build resilience and ensure livelihoods for traditionally vulnerable groups and Caribbean communities at larger.

 In partnership with governments  and stakeholders, UNDP executes projects and programmes to support the advancement of inclusive and sustainable development which will allow for the creation of resilient communities that can withstand shocks and crises.

The following capture recent projects and initiatives implemented using the Blue Economy for Green Islands approach.

UNDP- UWI Blue Economist Programme

Bringing together the research and regional expertise of the University of the West Indies and the technical capacity and global knowledge network of UNDP, the Blue Economists Programme has been established as a technical assistance platform to help counties in the Caribbean explore and take advantage of the immense opportunities in the Blue Economy space.  

Joint SDG Fund – Harnessing Blue Economy Finance for SIDS Recovery and Sustainable Development

With the support of the Joint SDG Fund, UNDP has worked in close collaboration with UNEP and FAO to assist Barbados, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines in identifying the binding constraints to Blue Economy investment. The findings point to gaps in policy, challenges with sector and agency coordination and limited national capacities for financial and technical analysis. This analytical work will form the foundation for the advancement of integrated national financing frameworks in these countries and ultimately assist with the articulation of a robust pipeline of transformative Blue Economy programmes in tourism, waste management, renewable energy and biodiversity.

Technical Asistance Investment Facility - TAIF (Blue Invest)

UNDP is also working with UN and IFI partners to mobilise new resources for a Technical Assistance and Investment Facility for the Caribbean. Once established, the TAIF will provide regional governments with much-needed technical support in developing a continuous pipeline of projects and programmes for the blue economy. Equally important, the TAIF will crowd-in new forms of sustainable financing from local and international investors.

Accelerator Lab

The UNDP Blue Economy Accelerator Lab for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean promotes out-of-the-box thinking and experimentation; supporting Small Island Developing States (SIDS) or Big Ocean States (BOS) with a primary focus on the sustainable development of the Blue Economy (BE). The Lab is working with innovators to create real world solutions for BE challenges including, an underwater drone to help monitor reef health, bio-plastic development with sargassum seaweed and food waste, a traceable tuna product and biogas. In addition to this, the Accelerator Lab has created BlueDIGITAL which will provide digitally-enabled solutions for four key groups of stakeholders in the Blue Economy ecosystem and related value chains.

Community Innovation Projects