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About the Showcase Programme
What is the APFED Innovation Showcase for Sustainable Development?
In its Final Report, APFED emphasised that we need "innovation" to achieve sustainable society in the Asia-Pacific region. However, there are barriers impeding the implementation of such innovation, including the uncertainty of impacts of innovative actions and the resistance of certain stakeholders. Because of different political, social, cultural, and economic conditions, the feasibility of "innovations" differs from one country/area to another. To address such barriers and to promote sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region, APFED has launched the "APFED Innovation Showcase for Sustainable Development (the Showcase Programme)" as one of the main activities of the second phase of APFED. This Programme is supported by the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.
Objectives of the Showcase Programme
The Showcase Programme aims to support projects that promote innovative policies, measures, and actions for sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region as recommended by the APFED Final Report. These innovative activities supported under the Showcase Programme shall be shared among various stakeholders in the region through the APFED Good Practice Database. The examples of innovative activities as defined in the APFED Final Report are:
-Innovation in relation to policies
To pilot innovative policies that lead to behavioural changes by people in a defined direction, such as integrated transportation planning and establishing special environmental zones for innovative policies.
-Innovation in relation to technologies
To analyse the feasibility of emerging technologies for prevention, mitigation or adaptation purposes under specific conditions, such as new sources of water, eco-industrial parks, and eco-restoration initiatives.
-Innovation in the encouragement of social practices for sustainability
To enhance social capacity for sustainable development by encouraging new and creative social practices conducted by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and/or stimulating partnerships between CSOs and other stakeholders, such as rural-based industries with support from the urban community, local eco-currency, participatory composting, joint management of protected areas, and inter-university credit systems.
The Showcase Programme is expected to address implementation barriers such as uncertainty regarding the impacts of innovative actions and resistance from certain stakeholders, and to examine the feasibility of the innovative practices in one country/region and their applicability to other countries/regions that have different political, social, economic or other conditions.
Forms of Support
Under the Showcase Programme, a grant of up to US$30,000 can be provided to each sustainable development project to showcase innovative approaches to support the development, implementation, monitoring, and information dissemination of innovative policies, measures and actions for promoting sustainable development in the region. The granted funds may be used to support stakeholder consultations, feasibility studies, pilot scheme experimentation and demonstration. It is a prerequisite that the proposed project aim to generate tangible outcomes in changing behaviours and business practices toward enhancing sustainability, and improving environmental performance. Mere literature review, report writing, and meeting organisations without showing any intent to make immediate behavioural changes and improve environmental performance shall be disqualified under the Programme.

While the project implementing organisations assume primary responsibilities for monitoring and self-evaluating project implementation and preparing reports thereon for submission to APFED, the projects shall be complementarily monitored and evaluated by one of the member institutes of the Network of Research Institutes for Sustainable Development (NetRes) established under APFED. For each of the approved projects, a NetRes institute shall be assigned to support the implementation of the project. The funds shall be channelled through the designated NetRes institute after the completion of a contract between the NetRes institute and the project implementing organisation.

It is expected that the project shall be implemented with good will and a spirit of partnership so that the outcome of the successfully implemented project can be registered in the APFED Good Practices Database. The Database is intended to disseminate information on good practices for promoting sustainable development in the region with a view to facilitating the replication of such successful initiatives.
How the Showcase Programme is managed
-Administration
Under the guidance of APFED, the Showcase Programme is administered by the APFED Secretariat (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, IGES) in coordination with the APFED Showcase Facility established that is serviced by the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP/ROAP).
-Selection of Showcase Projects
The selection of showcase project shall be made by the APFED Showcase Panel that is supported by the APFED Showcase Facility and the APFED Secretariat. The Panel consists of five members from APFED who were appointed by the Chair of APFED.
-NetRes
Each showcase project will be monitored and evaluated by one of the institutes of the Network of Research Institutes for Sustainable Development (NetRes). A NetRes institute will be appointed to each showcase project by the APFED Showcase Facility Secretariat. The NetRes members as of 10 April are:
- Chinese Association of Environmental Science (CAES), China
- Korea Environment Institute (KEI), Korea
- Singapore Institute for International Affairs (SIIA), Singapore
- TERI (The Energy Research Institute), India
- Thailand Environment Institute (TEI), Thailand
- University of South Pacific (USP), Fiji
- The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan
Eligibility
-Eligibility of applicants
To be eligible to apply for the Programme:
1) The organisation and project site(s) are in Asia and the Pacific region (Click here to see eligible countries).
2) An applicant must be a representative of an organisation that has been properly registered under the laws of the country for more than three years as an organisation working continuously for the promotion of sustainable development in a country in the Asia-Pacific region.
3) The organisation must have sufficient capacities to implement the proposed activities.
4) An organisation that fails to show its legal status and to present its recent annual report including financial statements at the time of concluding a contract shall be disqualified from receiving funds under the Programme.
5) Applicant has never obtained funding from APFED Showcase Programme in the past.
-Eligibility of projects
The proposed projects must satisfy the following requirements to be eligible for the Programme.
1) Projects must demonstrate innovative policies, measures, and actions including community empowerment and technology application with a view to promoting behavioural changes toward achieving sustainable development and generating positive impacts on environmental performance in Asia and the Pacific. The concrete outcome must be demonstrated in terms of behavioural or environmental performance. In other words, the experimentation and demonstration of pilot schemes are essential components of the project. Therefore, mere literature review, report writing, or organisation of meetings and study tours per se shall not be eligible.
2) Projects must not have been implemented yet or must be at the very early stages of implementation. The incremental component for improving environmental performance within the ongoing or completed projects makes such a project eligible for the Programme.
3) The project implementing organisation must have already secured core funds including in-kind contributions to support the implementation of the APFED Showcase project.
4) Projects must be designed to be implemented in partnership with other relevant organisations and stakeholder groups as well as NetRes institutions.
5) Projects must aim to demonstrate impacts that are measurable within the project implementation period.
6) The project implementation period shall be from 6 months to 24 months.
Priority Thematic Area
There are the five thematic priority areas of APFED according to the APFED Final Report, namely (1)freshwater; (2)marine and coastal resources; (3)energy and air; (4)land management including urbanisation, rural development, forest, and biodiversity; (5)waste/3R, chemicals. Among these priority thematic areas, additionally weighted scores may be given to the proposals that address climate change and/or 3Rs (facilitating actions to reduce, reuse, and/or recycle materials and to foster sound material cycle and circular economy ) for 2008 showcase projects.

Note: We welcome the proposals which cover the thematic areas other than the designated priority areas for 2008.
Further information
- For more information and proposal format, see How to Apply page.
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