Representatives of Norway and Ethiopia signed an agreement for a NOK 600 million ($80 million) investment aiming to protect Ethiopia’s remaining natural forests and for transforming the Ethiopian forest sector. The grant will be used for forest protection and restoration activities and for establishing innovative public-private partnerships in the forestry sector.
The support will contribute to Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Strategy which aims for middle-income country status by 2025 while maintaining greenhouse gas emissions at 2010-level.
To achieve this, Ethiopia plans to avoid greenhouse gas emissions of 255 Mt CO2e by 2025, compared to a business as usual emissions scenario. Half of these emissions will be avoided by protecting and restoring forests.
The agreement constitutes the main element of Phase II of the Ethiopian-Norwegian partnership agreement on forests and climate.
“Protection of Ethiopia's remaining natural forest as well as forest restoration at an unprecedented scale is needed to reach Ethiopia’s climate ambitions. Norwegian support focuses on innovation and new partnerships aiming to drive the costs of forest restoration down. Success in this area is important, not only to Ethiopia, but to all countries planning to undertake large scale forest restoration,” said H.E. Mr. Andreas Gaarder, Norwegian Ambassador to Ethiopia.
