New York, Sept. 20, 2024 (Lusa) - Ministers from the African countries covered by the Miombo woodlands will meet on Monday in New York to find mechanisms for financing and defending that natural area, an initiative of Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi, it was announced on Friday.
The high-level dialogue on the Miombo Initiative, promoted by Mozambique and which, in addition to heads of state and government from African countries, also brings together US businesspeople, will take place on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly and the Future Summit in New York.
"The country's president intends to consolidate the financing mechanism for the Miombo Initiative, publicise the platform for governance and management of the Miombo Initiative funds and reinforce the commitment to financing for the operationalisation of the letter of intent adopted in Washington," explains the Mozambican presidency in a statement.
The Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome located in central and southern tropical Africa. It covers two million square kilometres and guarantees the livelihoods of more than 300 million inhabitants. It is the largest dry tropical forest ecosystem in the world and also faces deforestation problems.
The Mozambican government hopes to mobilise investments to protect the Miombo Woodlands, estimated in the action plan at US$550 million (€518 million), of which US$154 million (€144.5 million) has been guaranteed since 2022.
Today, Filipe Nyusi begins a four-day visit to New York, where, in addition to the event dedicated to the Miombo Woodlands, he will take part in the Summit of the Future, which will take place on 22 and 23 September under the slogan "Multilateral Solutions for a Better Tomorrow" and under the auspices of the United Nations General Assembly.
On the first day of the event, the Mozambican head of state will deliver two speeches, the first under the slogan ‘Strengthening Multilateralism for International Peace and Security’ and the second in the plenary session of the Summit, to ‘share Mozambique's vision for building a better country and a fairer world’, as well as the country's ‘commitment to multilateralism’, according to the Presidency.
The Mozambican president said on 18 April, in the US capital, that the defence of the Miombo Woodlands "has already been put on the map", following the international conference held at that time in Washington.
At the same time, the Charter of Commitment was verbally adopted by the 11 states, including Mozambique and Angola, which have the largest areas of this woodland, which includes, in its introduction, "the assumptions for its adoption, recognition of the impact of deforestation, low funding, the need for funding at scale and collaboration between the parties", as well as the provision of a funding mechanism and the need to create a fund to be based in Mozambique for its preservation.
"We take extremely positive stock of the work we've done. We're creating bases, we're no longer just talking about the Amazon. Miombo is already on the map," said Filipe Nyusi in Washington, taking stock of the visit.
On 17 April, Nyusi closed the two-day International Conference on the Sustainable and Integrated Management of the Miombo Woodlands in Washington, where the 11 southern African countries that encompass the Miombo Woodlands adopted the Charter of Commitment for the defence of the area.
The April conference was supported by the International Conservation Caucus Foundation and the Wildlife Conservation Society, and resulted from the initiative of the Mozambican president, who, in August 2022, brought together the leaders of 10 other countries in the ‘Maputo Declaration on the Miombo Woodlands’, to promote a common approach to the ‘Sustainable and Integrated Management of the Miombo Woodlands and the Protection of the Greater Zambezi Basin’, the region's largest transboundary basin.
A Swahili word for ‘brachystegia’, miombo is a genus of tree that includes a large number of species and a forest formation that makes up the largest tropical forest ecosystem in Africa, being a source of water, food, shelter, timber, electricity generation and tourism.
PVJ/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
