ADDIS ABABA–Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative is a role model for Africa as it is designed to mitigate the multifaceted challenges facing Ethiopia and beyond, so remarked Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Demeke Mekonnen.
The Ethiopian green legacy initiative championed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) aimed at ensuring food security and mitigating climate change needs to be continental agenda. Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative is a flagship program that aims at providing various benefits to the development efforts in the country including the fight against environmental degradation and food security challenges.
“When we talk about green legacy it is not a simple and separate intervention in our national transformation agenda. Green legacy by itself is about climate change, food security, ensuring sustainable development and others,” Demeke said.
According to him, Ethiopia is trying to look to integrate the green legacy initiative with other different development activities being underway in the country during this year. “It is all about addressing nutrition, sustainable development, food security, poverty and this flagship program is crucial to address those related challenges.”
He stated that green legacy needs concrete effort and response from all the concerning bodies thereby leading to strong national and continental response to address challenges.
Ethiopian Forestry Development Senior Research and forestry and climate change specialist Adefires Worku (PhD) said that having abundant potential African is still lagging behind due to no unlocking the potential. Problems related drought, flooding, conflict, migration of youth, and other are among the problems.
Accordingly, Ethiopia’s green legacy initiative is critical program in averting those natural and manmade problems. The initiative is crucial in revitalizing and sustaining connectivity among African countries and it needs to be continental program.
Likewise it plays key role in climate change mitigation which is global issue. The initiative helps Ethiopia to conserve biodiversity rich forests, world heritage and two of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots are found in Ethiopia, he said.
Director General of African Risk Capacity (ARC) Ibrahim Cheikh said that Ethiopia has become a model in green development initiative which other countries need to replicate it and the country has done a marvelous job on carbon emissions and minimizing climate induced impacts.
Currently, Ethiopia is implementing the Green Legacy Initiative as a good response to a worrying trend of global warming and environmental degradation and the idea is believed to be transcending borders not only in the continent but all over the world as humanity is threatened by the challenges of climate change, he said.
The Ethiopian Herald 26 February 2023 BY HAILE DEMEKE