Antigua and Barbuda to implement GEF IWEco project

Antigua and Barbuda and other Eastern Caribbean countries will look to implement the Global Environment Facility funded Integrating Water, Land and Ecosystems Management in Caribbean Small Island Developing States Project (GEF IWEco) over the next four years.
At the 5th Council of Ministers Meeting of Environment Sustainability (COMES 5) held in Montserrat on Wednesday, the island’s Minister of Health, Molwyn Joseph signed an agreement with other Ministers of the Environment in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to commit to implementing the US $20 million project.
In his remarks, Joseph said that OECS countries must look to become a “zone of environmental integrity.”
“I believe that we can, in addition [to] presenting ourselves as a zone of peace, we can present ourselves, as small countries, as a zone of environmental integrity, where we demonstrate to the whole world that we can lead in the area of respecting and preserving our environment,” said Joseph.
GEF IWEco is a five-year regional multi-focal area project financed under the GEF Focal Areas: International Waters, Land Degradation, Biodiversity, Sustainable Forest Management and the GEF Small Grants Programme.
The project was established under the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Area (known as the Cartagena Convention), a legally binding environmental treaty for the Wider Caribbean.
Ten countries are currently participating in the project, including Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Kitts, and Nevis and St. Lucia among others.