Côte d’Ivoire Becomes First African Country to Receive FAO’s Green Climate Fund

Cote d’Ivoire better known as Ivory Coast will receive $11.8 million from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as support from the Green Climate Fund. A project in the African Nation is among several others which have been approved by the United Nations body for funding.

The west African country is now the first in the continent since this is the first time the FAO has helped an African country obtain a grant from the international entity.

Green Climate Fund is a unique global platform mandated to invest in low-emission and climate-resilient development.

According to FAO Deputy Director-General, Climate and Natural Resources Maria Helena Semedo, the Côte d’Ivoire project was approved alongside others from Armenia and Colombia because Africa has a lot of need, and a lot of potential.

The funds will help Côte d’Ivoire’s Promire project aimed at Promoting zero-deforestation cocoa production. The project envisions reduced emissions in the country.

Agriculture contributes to almost two-thirds of the deforestation, with a third due to cocoa production. Most farmers cut down trees in forests in order to clear the land clearing to grow “full-sun” cocoa.

The enlarged project will implement low-carbon emission agroforestry practices on 3 650 hectares in a way designed to nudge changes by and for the benefit of 600,000 smallholder farmers in the southeastern regions around Agnéby-Tiassa, La Mé and Sud-Comoé.

Ivory Coast which is one of the world’s largest cocoa producing country experiences fastest rates of forest loss and almost no pristine forest remains outside its national parks.

On the ground, the project also focuses on diversified use of farmland beyond cash crops to include food crops. It also seeks to renew coffee plantations alongside the planting of trees.

If implemented fully, the new project is poised to reduce carbon emissions by 5.5 million tCO₂ equivalent over a 20-year span.