Forests for People

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German Development Cooperation

in the forest sector – capacity development

for benefiting people

Heiko Warnken, Head of Department Environment, Federal Ministry

for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany

he world’s forests provide a livelihood for more than one

billion people. They use the forest as a source of income,

construction materials, fuelwood, food and medicine.

Forests contain and preserve 75 per cent of global biodiversity,

and it is well known that they store carbon and produce oxygen,

thus regulating our global climate. This significant role of the

worlds’ forests in sustainable development and green economies

has been the focus of the German Development Cooperation in

the forest sector for more than 30 years. Forests, biodiversity

and climate change play a major role in German official devel-

opment assistance (ODA), building on strong political support.

At present Germany is investing about €1.5 billion in ongoing bilat-

eral tropical forest programmes worldwide. The bulk of funding

by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation

and Development (BMZ) is dedicated to bilateral coopera-

tion in Germany’s partner countries and regions. Most of BMZ’s

programmes are implemented by GIZ (technical cooperation)

and KfW Development Bank (financial cooperation),

working closely with local partners. Today, BMZ

cooperates with 44 partner countries in the context of

forest conservation on topics ranging from Reducing

Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation

(REDD+) and sustainable forest management, forest

governance and policy reform, especially the Forest Law

Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action

Plan of the European Union, to protected forest area

management, community forestry, small and medium-

sized enterprises and forest certification.

Germany also has increased its multilateral activities.

As the most important global initiative on REDD+, the

Forest Carbon Partnership Facility was originally spear-

headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel at the 2007 G8

summit and Germany so far has committed

54 million

to it, mainly through BMZ. This underlines Germany’s

firm belief that, as a results-based instrument, REDD+

provides huge potential for development, climate

change mitigation and protection of biodiversity. The

World Bank-affiliated facility today has 37 partner

countries and 16 donors and has quickly developed into

the largest multilateral pilot initiative for REDD+. This

lends vital impetus to forest protection, both on the

ground and in the international climate negotiations.

The Millennium Development Goals as well as the

Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra

Agenda for Action provide the overall framework for

German Development Cooperation’s work. Environment

and forest-related cooperation is guided by the Rio

Conventions and the international forest regime. BMZ

follows an integrated cross-sectoral approach support-

ing capacity development at all levels – local, national

and regional – to enable its partners to manage their

forests for the welfare of their own and future genera-

tions. Implementation of the programmes is managed

by decentralized structures, the application and combi-

nation of instruments such as technical and financial

cooperation, public private partnerships and budget

support. Provision of German ODA is subject to close

consultation and negotiation with partner govern-

ments as well as civil society. One outstanding example,

Forests are among Cameroon’s most important natural resources

Image: G. Uluntuncok