The project, which was approved by the National Steering Committee of the UNDP/GEF Small Grants Programme Philippines on February 22, 2006 is the first Project of the SGP-PEMSEA Partnership on Community Participation in the Management of the Seas of East Asia. The approved project aims to strengthen the partnership among the various local institutions and mobilize the partnership towards sustainable coastal and marine management in Balayan. While marine and resource conservation is a wide concern in the Municipality of Balayan, the fragmented and sectoral approaches resulted to projects not being sustained and to sectoral competition. ANAK-Balayan considers collaboration and cooperation as key ingredients in the successful management of environmental initiatives.

Components of the project include Multi-sectoral Partnership Building, Capacity Development, Resource Management, Information Base Establishment, and Institutionalization of people’s initiatives. Project implementation will be done in collaboration with the Provincial Government-Environment and Natural Resources Office (PG-ENRO) and various local government offices, academic institutions, NGOs, community-based organizations and people’s organizations in Balayan.

ANAK-Balayan is a Federation of 13 community-based organizations with more than 500 members and has been previously granted by SGP. The Federation has shown significant contribution in policy advocacy and resource management in Balayan in its previous project, and as such, was given the opportunity to broaden its scope and advance its implementation to consolidate existing initiatives in Balayan.