Second round of BID Caribbean funds 18 new projects

Projects teams with participation from institutions in 14 countries receives a combined total of €621,667—with €697,834 raised by projects in co-funding

Mimosa albida
Mimosa albida Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd. observed in Córdoba, Ver., México by Vania González (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Eighteen projects in the Caribbean have been selected by an expert panel to receive funding through the Biodiversity Information for Development (BID) programme.

Offering opportunities at varying scales, the call for proposals issued in September 2020 results in successful funding of one regional data mobilization grant, seven at national scale, seven at institutional scale and three data-use grants—all kicking off activities with a Data Mobilization workshop in August and running for periods of 12-24 months.

This call aims to build on the impact of the programme's first phase in the Caribbean, in which eight BID-funded projects engaged nine new data publishers to mobilize 81 biodiversity datasets containing more than 43 thousand occurrence records relevant to the regions’ priority policy needs. The programme's rigorous training and e-learning curricula have also helped improve biodiversity data skills and added dozens of Caribbean-based professionals to the GBIF community of practice in the wider Latin America and Caribbean region.

2021 BID Caribbean projects

Project Country of project lead Funding from BID Cofunding
Mobilizing Cuban plant information from the IUCN SSC Cuban Plant Specialist Group Cuba €39,999 €19,336
Marine Biodiversity Hub Trinidad and Tobago €19,998 €20,608
Implementing national flows of biodiversity data in Suriname Suriname €38,725 €54,210
Assessment and update of data on marine macroalgae in Hispaniola Dominican Republic €17,884 €14,042
Integration of biodiversity data of wild bee-plant interactions in Mexico Mexico €39,917 €74,531
Plant communities of tropical dry forests in Caribbean Colombia Colombia €19,671 €23,008
Rescuing the knowledge base of Venezuela’s marine biodiversity Venezuela €39,569 €31,713
Catalog of the Fishes of Colombia Colombia €60,000 €121,000
Mobilizing natural history collections of the Dominican Republic Dominican Republic €34,352 €25,358
First steps for biodiversity data publishing for Hispaniola Dominican Republic €57,898 €41,427
Preliminary arthropod checklists and occurrences from Caribbean Colombia Colombia €19,673 €8,432
Improving national biodiversity data accessibility in Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago €38,825 €37,645
Strengthening biodiversity data mobilization in Venezuela Venezuela €17,705 €12,265
Data mobilization for key entomological groups across Caribbean Colombia Colombia €39,934 €44,951
Collections-based engagement of decision-makers to save globally threatened epiphytes in Colombia Colombia €58,682 €60,935
Data mobilization of the Cartagena Botanical Garden collections Colombia €19,835 €12,861
Mobilizing marine data from Colombian natural history collections Colombia €40,000 €78,204
Data on dipterans in Colombia with relevance to human and animal health Colombia €19,000 €17,308

 This programme is funded by the European Union.