 The Global Environment Facility, Jeff Smallgrant's program for St. Lucia projects that it will invest at least EC$6.2 million in initiatives that can serve and restore the environment while enhancing people's well-being and livelihoods over the next four years. This period, the seventh operational phase, will be launched on Monday, 9th November, in a broadcast from the GIS studios. Research and innovation is the primary focus of the Jeff Smallgrant's program, and to set this agenda in motion, a consultation dubbed the People's Parliament will be held on the 23rd of November at Parliament Building in Castries. National program coordinator is Giles Romulus. One of our conclusions 2019 is that in the context of COVID and all the challenges from climate change, as a small island development state, we need to begin to focus on research and innovation. And basically, with research and innovation at all levels, we see from the bedrooms at the bottom, from the farm to the kitchen, from the cricketed pitch to the dance hall, research and innovation can be done at all those levels. So we are bringing together a cadre of what we call luminaries. Five St. Lucia innovators who have made tremendous impact abroad will sit in virtually. They are Dr. Nessia Dore, Dr. Whitney Henry-Dirand, a Professor Kato Lawrence, Parry Husbands Jr. and Professor Aldri Henry Lee. Representatives from Microsoft headquarters in Washington, DC have also been invited. In St. Lucia, we're going to identify luminaries in all fields, the disabled, farmers, fishers, doctors, lawyers who will sit in Parliament, and we are going to discuss the agenda for research and innovation in a small island development state. What should we do? Out of that, we will get a report, and then we have a drafting committee that will put a declaration together, and that declaration will go around St. Lucia for consultation. And we hope to finalize it just before independence next year, or sooner after, and then submit it to our policy makers and the private sector, etc. The Jeff Small Grants program develops countries toward climate change mitigation, conservation of biodiversity, protection of international waters, reduction of the impact of persistent organic pollutants, and prevention of land degradation while generating sustainable livelihoods. This year, the program in St. Lucia will conduct training sessions on how businesses and other organizations can tap into its funding. In 2019, the program supported some 14 projects to the tune of US $682,000 generating employment for 247 individuals.