In accordance with the commitments of the European Union with regard to its Overseas Countries and Territories, and those of the United Kingdom, and in particular the Overseas Association Decision (OAD) and the 2015-2020 strategy of the Overseas Countries and Territories Association (OCTA), the Thematic Programme, AKA the Green Overseas “GO” Programme, was conceived and launched to support the 25 European and British Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs).

The GO Programme aims to contribute to the sustainable, resilient, and inclusive development of OCTs. Two specific objectives are targeted, namely: (i) to increase their resilience to climate change, including through gender equality; (ii) to further develop their low carbon energy transition. This 17.8-million-euro programme is implemented by Expertise France (EF) for a total duration of 68 months - through April 2026.

The main programme beneficiaries are the 25 OCTs including their governments, national, regional and local authorities, the private sector, civil society actors and citizens.

The list of OCTs is the following:

• Aruba, Bonaire, Curação, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten
• Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Montserrat, Pitcairn, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, St Helena, Ascension Island, Tristan da Cunha, Turks and Caicos Islands
• French Polynesia, French Southern and Antarctic Territories, New Caledonia and Dependencies, Wallis and Futuna Islands, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Pierre and Miquelon
• and Greenland.

Since the inception of the Programme, the team has been exchanging and liaising extensively and consistently with the programme beneficiaries and partners in order to identify the needs of the targeted OCTs and to develop an adapted strategy and associated activities in order to support the climate change resilience and energy transition needs of the beneficiaries.  Two main implementation modalities have been selected to reach the objectives and achieve the outcomes of the GO Programme:

• The “GO Facility”: each OCT are invited to submit requests for specific activities at the territorial/national level, within a pre-determined maximum financial range;
• The “GO Communities”: each OCT is invited to participate in collective activities at the regional or inter-regional level on transversal issues.

Both modalities may contain similar types of activities: technical assistance, studies, training, webinars, workshops, field visits, pilot (for the Facility) and demonstration (for the GO Communities) projects. To the extent possible, the GO Programme will ensure synergies between the two modalities.

Both modalities will be supported by an online information and knowledge exchange web portal called the GO Platform. In practice, the GO Platform will take the form of a dedicated extranet that will be accessed via the GO Programme website. Stakeholders from beneficiary countries and territories will be able to log in to access various resources associated with both the GO facility and the GO Thematic Clusters (e.g. training or guidance materials, deliverables) as well as additional specific information on the GO Programme. Beneficiary countries and territories will also be able to upload documentation and share information and experiences. Both the GO Programme website and platform are currently under development.