12 pilot communities receive funds to implement Community Development Plans

The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Project Management Office in the Office of the President announced that the first set of funds has been disbursed to Amerindian communities under the Amerindian Development Fund (ADF) Project.
The project is expected to benefit approximately 180 communities and is being implemented in two phases. Phase I of the project will provide 27 communities with funding of up to Gy$5M each for the development of a community based and led initiative or business investment.
Twelve of the 27 communities in this phase of the project have received disbursements to begin implementing their CDPs which they developed over the course of months. Each of the CDP was approved by consensus or majority vote at village meetings. The following 12 community projects have received disbursements:
Prior to the disbursements, the Ministry and the UNDP invited representatives from the communities to travel to Georgetown to participate in an Inception Workshop held on March 22-23, 2013 to discuss the projects and share their visions and expectations. The specific objectives included: engaging the representatives of each community as well as consulting with the relevant national stakeholders on the projects; identifying and building key linkages as well as synergies between community projects and institutions; and examining each project in detail to understand the support and other requirements needed to maximise chances for success.
Subsequently, the ministry and UNDP coordinated with various government agencies (including the Ministry of Agriculture’s Fisheries Department, National Agriculture & Research Extension Institute, Guyana Livestock Development Agency, and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission to undertake field visits to the selected communities, an exercise that began on April 17 and is still on-going.
The field visits focused on: the technical aspects of implementing each CDP, outlining each community’s technical assistance and training needs; the management and implementation arrangements for each CDP, examining the experience and arrangements each community had in recording keeping and financial management; adjusting the budgets to within the allowable allocation (Gy$5M) including the required inputs while considering feasibility and economic sustainability; reviewing the general and specific provisions of each grant agreement; examining and assessing the technical feasibility and suitability of each site proposed; examining the business and economic feasibility of each CDP; and signing of the Micro-Capital Grant Agreement
According to the work plan, in the coming months, the combined project teams will continue to engage the remaining communities in Phase I, ultimately facilitating the disbursement of funds to these communities.
Concurrently, the project will produce outputs that will benefit Phase II, including a functional and scalable disbursement mechanism, key lessons learned and implications for the Phase II operational plan.