SLU is together with the Swedish Forest Agency and Eco Innovation Foundation supporting Ethiopia’s efforts to capacitate its forest sector. The Swedish team is lead by researchers from SLU.
The Ethiopian Government has recently adopted a National Forest Sector Development Plan. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) is in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supporting a project led by the Ethiopian Forest and Climate Change Commission, where Ethiopian and Swedish partners together with the Center for International Forestry Research, work with a broad range of activities.
- The ambition is that the forest sector in Ethiopia should become a more important contributor to economic growth and poverty alleviation but at the same time provide important eco-system services, says SLU researcher Erik Karltun.
The SLU led Swedish team is engaged in policy and institutional development, small-scale forest industry development, capacity building of forest extension staff, gender mainstreaming, biodiversity monitoring in managed forests and urban greening.
- In 2024 an application for a new project phase has been submitted to Sida. UNDP and Ethiopia Forest Development are the main applicants and SLU is co-applicant, says Erik Karltun. - We are currently waiting for a decision, Erik says in October.
Examples of other cooperation with Ethiopia
SLU is actively engaged in bilateral cooperation with Ethiopia, financed by Sida. The agreement period for this programme between Sweden and Ethiopia is 1 July 2018 - 30 June 2023. The main focus during the current agreement period lies on research capacity building. Read more here.
Erik Karltun
Researcher at the Department of Soil and Environment; Biogeochemistry of Forest Soils
Telephone: +4618671277, +46706901277
E-mail: erik.karltun@slu.se