Business View Caribbean - August/September 2018

12 13 OPENING LINES getting help from the Global Environment Facil- ity (GEF) to address water, land and biodiversity resource management as well as climate change. Under the five-year Integrating Water, Land, and Ecosystems Management in Caribbean Small Island Developing States (GEF-IWEco Project), countries are implementing national sub-projects at specific sites in order to enhance livelihood opportunities and socio-economic co-benefits for targeted communities from improved eco- system services functioning. Project sites include the upper reaches of the Soufriere Watershed in Saint Lucia, the Cedar Grove and Cooks Watershed areas and McKinnons Pond in Antigua, and the Negril Morass in Jamaica. “Adjusting to the new normal requires compre- hensive and coordinated efforts to mainstream climate change considerations in development planning,” Mitchell said. “In practice, this will require a shift in focus, from sustainable develop- ment to climate-smart sustainable development.” In addition to Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago, are also participating in the project, which also aims to strengthen policy, legislative and institutional re- forms and capacity building. Half of the ten coun- tries—Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines—belong to the sub-regional group- ing, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Their participation in the project is being funded by the GEF to the tune of US$20 million. IWEco is being co-implemented by United Nations Environment and the UN Development