New York, Sept. 23, 2024 (Lusa) - Mozambique is bringing together leaders from the African countries covered by the Miombo Forest and US businessmen in New York on Monday to find mechanisms for financing and defending that natural area, as an initiative of Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi.
The high-level dialogue on the Miombo Initiative, promoted by Mozambique and expected to bring together heads of state and government from African countries, will take place on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly and the Summit of the Future.
"The president of the Republic 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 the operationalisation of the letter of intent adopted in Washington," explained the Mozambican presidency.
The Miombo Forest covers two million square kilometres and provides more than 300 million inhabitants a livelihood. It is the largest dry tropical forest ecosystem in the world, but it also faces deforestation problems.
Mozambique's government hopes to mobilise investments to protect the Miombo Forest, estimated in the action plan at $550 million (€518 million), of which $154 million (€144.5 million) has been promised since 2022.
Filipe Nyusi is on a four-day visit to New York, where, in addition to the event dedicated to the Miombo Forest, he is taking part in the Summit of the Future, which ends today, under the slogan "Multilateral Solutions for a Better Tomorrow’ and with the seal of approval of the United Nations General Assembly.
He said on 18 April, in the US capital, that the defence of the Miombo Forest "has 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 forest, which includes, in its introduction, "the assumptions for its adoption, recognition of the impact of deforestation, low financing, the need for financing at scale and collaboration between the parties", as well as the provision of a financing mechanism and the need to create a fund to be based in Mozambique for its preservation.
"We are extremely positive about the work we have done. We're creating bases; we're no longer just talking about 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 Forest in Washington. The 11 southern African countries that make up the Miombo Forest adopted the Letter 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 Forest’, to promote a common approach to the "Sustainable and Integrated Management of the Miombo Forests 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 many species and a forest formation that makes up the largest tropical forest ecosystem in Africa. It is a source of water, food, shelter, timber, electricity generation, and tourism.
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