Green Overseas (GO) Programme

Contributing to the sustainable, resilient and inclusive development of European and British overseas territories.

Spread across the oceans, from the poles to the tropics, European and British overseas countries and territories are home to exceptional biodiversity and a unique cultural diversity.

Remote and dependent on fossil fuel imports, these 25 islands are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which poses a real threat to their sustainability.

The GO programme, which is financed by the European Union, aims to accelerate the energy transition and increase the resilience of overseas countries and territories to climate change, while mainstreaming gender equality.

Extensive geographical coverage

The GO programme is implemented in 25 European and British overseas countries and territories:

• European Union Overseas Countries and Territories – Aruba; Bonaire; Curaçao; French Polynesia; French Southern and Antarctic Territories; Greenland; New Caledonia; Saba; Saint Barthélemy; St. Pierre and Miquelon; St. Eustatius; Sint Maarten; Wallis and Futuna

• British Overseas Territories – Anguilla; Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha; Bermuda; British Antarctic Territory; British Indian Ocean Territory; British Virgin Islands; Cayman Islands; Falkland Islands; Montserrat; Pitcairn Islands; Saint Helena; South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; Turks and Caicos Islands.

Our thematic areas of action

The energy transition

• Public policies and regulations for the energy transition

• Renewable energy waste storage, integration and management

• Energy efficiency and energy saving in buildings and facilities

• Ecomobility and low-carbon transport.

Resilience to climate change

• Public policies and regulations for climate resilience

• Coastal management of climate risks

• Resilient water resources management

• Climate-resilient food systems.

Climate finance

• Access to the climate finance of multilateral and bilateral donors

• Access to private investments for energy efficiency, renewable energy and resilient infrastructure projects

• Management of financial risks related to climate change.

Our approach

To meet the needs of each recipient country and territory, the GO programme aims to give them special support, while facilitating a collective mobilisation at several levels.

The implementation of the programme is based on two operational methods:

• The GO facility: each country or territory has the opportunity of proposing one or two activities that meet their territorial priorities within a predetermined budget range. The GO facility has been open since September 2022

• The GO communities: each country or territory has the opportunity of participating in collective activities (workshops, training, site visits, technical tools and studies, etc.) on crosscutting themes of interest on resilience to climate change, the energy transition and climate finance. The three GO communities should begin during the 1st half of 2023.

At the same time, a collaborative sharing tool accessible via the programme’s website, called the GO platform, will be launched in early 2023.

Our activities

To promote changes in behaviour, practices and policies in terms of the energy transition and resilience to climate change, a wide range of activities are proposed at the local, subregional, regional, interregional and international levels through:

• Capacity building

• The development of knowledge

• Awareness-raising and advocacy

• The implementation and sharing of innovative solutions.

The “Green Overseas Expertise Network”

In an effort to mobilise service providers specialised in the energy transition and resilience to climate change in the overseas countries and territories and promote local expertise, the GO programme wishes to create a pool of entities and/or individual experts through the “Green Overseas Expertise Network”.

The procurement notice on the “Green Overseas Expertise Network” can be consulted on the website of the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) under the reference “2022/S 205-585112”. The procurement documents are available on PLACE, the procurement platform of the French State, under the reference “22-SAD-S002-GO”.