MAJURO — Funding is readily available for small scale, community-based development projects in the Marshall Islands—what’s lacking is people coming forward with projects to develop the local economy and to take advantage of funding opportunities, said a top government official here.
A “government-will-take-care-of-everything” attitude is a roadblock that needs to be overcome before more community-based development initiatives will surface, according to Resources and Development Secretary Fredrick Muller.
The Marshall Islands Ministry of Resources and Development has established relations with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization to enable Marshall Islanders to access a small grant program aimed at improving “food security,” another term for increasing availability and quality of food for local populations.
Muller said this week that this FAO-funded small grant program “is geared toward grassroots/community projects.” The funding is relatively small, limited to about $10,000 per grant. But for a project in the remote outer islands of the Marshalls where populations range from 100 to 500 people, that level of money is substantial, he said.
But in the first 18 months that the program has been offered, just six grant requests have been submitted.
“We even help facilitate the proposal,” Muller said.
Resources and Development as well as the Ministry of Finance’s Office of International Development Assistance have helped to prepare the six proposals that have been submitted for funding.
The six proposals have been related to home gardening and animal husbandry. “Fisheries is included, but we haven’t yet had any requests for funding fisheries projects,” Muller said.
The Marshalls is allowed a maximum of 10 projects a year. But, said Muller, since the Marshall Islands is a new member of FAO, the U.N. agency is encouraging the Ministry of Resources and Development to submit as many requests as possible.
But the holdup is that people and organizations are not exactly running into Muller’s office to submit project requests-–despite the fact that there is technical assistance to help prepare project requests.
Muller hopes that more requests for small scale development projects related to food will be forthcoming from people and organizations in the Marshall Islands.
“The opportunities are there,” he said, adding that he believes out-dated attitudes may be the cause of the slowness of people here to take advantage of funding opportunities for local development.
“Everyone thinks the government will do it for them,” he said. “That’s changing now.”
Muller added: “Everything is there (for development). We’re just missing something in the process: it’s called action.”
