Ethiopia, Norway discuss cooperation in climate adaptation, sustainable forestry

Addis Ababa, November 1, 2023 (FBC) – Ethiopia’s Minister of Agriculture, Girma Amente, today held a discussion with the Norwegian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Stian Christensen, on deepening the long-established cooperation between the two countries in environment protection and climate action.

During their meeting, both sides reviewed the Ethiopia-Norway cooperation in climate adaptation, sustainable forest management, landscape rehabilitation and food system transformation towards food security.

The Agriculture Minister and the Norwegian Ambassador also assessed the highlight of their cooperation to ensuring improved livelihoods for Ethiopians.

Norway and Ethiopia have multiple common interests ranging from peace and security, climate change and migration management, to sustainable development, gender equality, education and, increasingly, private sector promotion and development.

Most recently, the Government of Norway has announced a 25 million USD in funding to support Ethiopia’s ambitions, prolonging its decade-long forest partnership with the East African nation at the Africa Climate Summit held early September in Nairobi. The funding aims to support Ethiopia’s undertakings to avert the impacts of climate change. The latest pledge is topping up Norway’s investment of more than 162 million USD to Ethiopia’s forest sector over the last 10 years.

It is also mentioned that the decade-long support has contributed to the protection of one million hectares of natural forests, which are now under sustainable management schemes. It has also contributed to restoring one million hectares of degraded forests and the establishment of 75,000 hectares of high-value plantation forests. 300,000 livelihoods have been created and enhanced as a result of the partnership, an official report from the Norwegian government indicated.

The Ethiopian government has pledged to ensure sustainable use or protection of all remaining forests in the country and to double the forest cover by 2030.

Through the Green Legacy initiative, Ethiopia has planted more than 25 billion seedlings in the first phase of the initiative since 2019. In June, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) disclosed that Ethiopia will have planted a total of 31 billion seedlings by the end of 2023 Green Legacy planting season.

Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) was established in 2008 and is the government of Norway’s largest international effort to help combat climate change and preserve nature by protecting the world’s tropical forests. To achieve this, Norway has entered into bilateral partnerships with several of the most important tropical forest countries in the world, across all three of the largest rainforest basins. NICFI has invested more than USD 5 billion to protect forests since 2008.