Finfinne, 9 February 2023
The Government of Ethiopia has today signed Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement with the World Bank. This agreement is made to effect the purchase of about 4 million tCO2e emission reduced as a result of OFLP supported Community-based emission reduction activities.
It is estimated that effective Emission Reduction activities in Oromia have the potential to reduce more than 45 million tCO2e. To this effect, the Oromia Forested Landscape Program (OFLP) has been carrying out community-based emission reduction activities since 2017. Accordingly, the program has been making community-based interventions that address deforestation and forest degradation, among other emission reduction activities, over the last five years of its implementation. In so doing, over 9,400 hectares of degraded land has been reforested while Participatory Forest Management was implemented on more than 190,000 hectares of forest across Oromia. Meantime, the program has transferred over 80 million ETB to support the livelihood of local cooperatives engaged in Afforestation/Reforestation and Participatory Forest Management activities.
On top of that, the government of Ethiopia has today signed about 4 million tCO2e emission reduction purchase agreement with the World Bank (on behalf of BioCarbon fund Imitative for Sustainable forested landscape program (ISFL)). The signing was made by H.E Ato Ahmed Shide Minister of Ministry of Finance and H.E Ousmane Dione, World Bank Country Director for East Africa in the presence of USA, Switzerland, Norway and UK Ambassadors and other dignitaries. The contract agreement will be implemented till 2029 in two phases, where the first phase accounts 15 mil. USD and the second phase 25 mil. USD. It was also known that this is largest volume of emission reduction purchase agreement in the history of ISFL. On top of that, OFLP Coordinator Ato Taye Dugasa congratulated all project staff, stakeholders, partners and implementing sectors for their valuable contribution toward the achievement.
According to OFLP benefit sharing plan and arrangement, 80% of the money generated from emission reduction purchase will directly go to the local community who have played significant role in the emission reduction activities.