Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Norway to spend $63 mln on Ethiopian land-use programmes 

Norway’s government has agreed to spend $63 million to help fund two land-use programmes in Ethiopia that will tackle forest and land degradation, the World Bank, which is partnering in the projects, said on Tuesday.
A part of the grant will be used to support Ethiopia’s works to regulate REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) activities, complementing ongoing financing from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).

REDD+ is a key part of Ethiopia’s plans on climate change. Norway’s financing should help the African country to develop a pilot REDD program at regional level, the World Bank said in a statement.

“These funds will allow Ethiopia to become ready for REDD+ and will provide for an ambitious landscape-level program to address the causes of deforestation in the most forested region of our country,” said Sileshi Getahun, of the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture.

The largest share of Norway’s grant ($50 million) will support the second phase of Ethiopia’s Sustainable Land Management Programme (SLMP II), a project to rehabilitate degraded land.

In the first phase of the programme, which started in 2008, 190,000 hectares of land considered poorly fit for agriculture were restored.

Ethiopia has a voluntary goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2025.

No comments:

Post a Comment