Overview
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a sovereign state in the Lesser Antilles consisting of many islands and cays – of which nine are inhabited, including the mainland Saint Vincent and the Grenadine islands: Young Island, Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, Union Island, Mayreau, Petit Saint Vincent and Palm Island. The country with a population of 110,940 people, gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1979 with Queen Elizabeth II remaining as Head of State and the Governor-General acting as her representative on the island. The Prime Minister is the Head of Government.

Main Initiatives                                               

UNDP’s current portfolio in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines includes several projects that aim to build resilience, strengthen national capacities for disaster mitigation and preparedness, enhance citizen security and accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while ensuring gender equality and community empowerment are recognised and supported.

Under the Conserving Biodiversity and Reducing Land Degradation Using a Ridge-to-Reef Approach and the IWEco Addressing Land Degradation projects, UNDP works in partnership with the government to enhance biodiversity and ecosystems conservation through an expanded and strengthened Protected Area (PA) system and with sustainable land management (SLM) practices. At the community level, the UNDP Global Environment Facility - Small Grants Programme (GEF-SGP) sets out to achieve environmental sustainability, alleviate poverty and build the capacity of local NGOs and community-based organisations through projects and programmes. Coastal management will also be enhanced through the “Improving Sargassum Management capacities in the Caribbean” project, funded by Japan, supporting the national agencies in dealing with the negative impacts of sargassum.  UNDP also provides climate action support, disaster risk reduction and environmental management interventions through the  EnGenDER project.

The UNDP Regional Hub provides support to the SVG Electoral Office— the first electoral support requested and provided by the UN to the country. The UNDP Regional Hub offers support in the design of a Voter Education (VE) Programme. UNDP strengthened the Electoral Office (EO) capacity by financially supporting the Office with equipment to improve boundary delimitation, encouragement of voter registration, the extension of voter education in remote locations, and administrative management of electoral operations before the elections. Recently, UNDP provided funding and procurement services to purchase one four-wheel-drive vehicle to be used by the EO team.

In support of SDG mainstreaming and to advance the commencement of a MAPS (Mainstreaming, Acceleration and Policy Support for the 2030 Agenda) process, UNDP supported the undertaking of a Rapid Integrated Assessment per the request of the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines at the end of 2019. A follow up with the government, in collaboration with the UN Resident Coordinator Office, will take place in 2020.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines presently benefits from the SDG Fund supported joint programme Harnessing Blue Economy Finance for SIDS Recovery and Sustainable Development (UNDP, UNEP, FAO), where UNDP as the lead in supporting the development of national integrated finance frameworks for financing the blue economy. The country also benefits from the  CariSECURE project.

In light of the current crisis, UNDP supported the COVID-19 response by partnering with the Government in the production of a Human and Economic Assessment of Impact (HEAT Report, with the collaboration of UNICEF and UN Women. 

Additionally, UNDP is technically and financially supporting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) within ten countries and territories that are directly or indirectly linked to the tourism sector or have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, through the Future Tourism project.   With gender equality and empowerment of women at its core, the project seeks to promote economic diversification, job creation and resilience with the “Blue Economy for Green Islands” approach in the tourism sector thereby boosting recovery and supporting the digitally enabled transformation of the business processes and value chains of MSMEs.

Following the explosive eruption of the La Soufriere volcano in April 2021 UNDP supported the response in-country through bolstering short term community employment opportunities, tied to ash removal, thereby allowing for safe return and access to key facilities and structures.  The approval of a comprehensive post-disaster assessment subsequent to the volcanic eruption paved the way for the development of an actionable and sustainable Recovery Strategy for mobilizing financial and technical resources to support the recovery on the island, with UNDP playing a key lead convenor role.

For more information on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, please view the Human Development Report Note for this country.

Did you know?

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has the oldest Botanic Gardens in the Western Hemisphere founded in 1765!

Contact Us

To contact us, you can write to registry.bb@undp.org