Environment for Development

The Environmental Economics Policy Forum for Ethiopia (EEPFE) at the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI) has links and/or interacts with a number of institutions in and outside Ethiopia. Domestically the Forum has links with several governmental and non-governmental institutions. Governmental institutions with which the Forum interacts or has links include the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Water and Energy, Environmental Protection Authority and the School of Economics of the Addis Ababa University. Non-governmental institutions include Forum for Environment, Climate Change Forum-Ethiopia, GTZ ECO-Ethiopia and Sustainable Land Use Forum.  

International institutions with which EEPFE has worked or has links include the World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), Portland State University, and London School of Economics. The Forum also naturally interacts with other centers of the EfD initiative, the EfD secretariat, Resources for the Future and the Ethiopian Development Research Institute.

The following is a brief description of some of the achievements in terms of policy research and interaction. Through a sustainable land mana­gement stakeholder analysis study, EfD researchers in Ethiopia convinced the World Bank to shift resources for sustainable land management from low to high production potential areas of Ethiopian highlands and to entirely implement its SLM project in the high potential areas of the Ethiopian highlands. Until recently resources for natural resource management were flowing to low potential or degraded areas of the country neglecting high potential or less  degraded areas. EfD researchers, in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa (CEEPA), have also conducted research on natural resource accounts for Ethiopia. The level of natural resource degradation as well as the role of natural resources in Ethiopia and its implications for the national accounts in monetary terms was shown to experts in economics, forestry, soil sciences, ecology and related fields – representing NGOs, civil society, the Environmental Protection Authority, the Parliament and the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Finance and Economic Development.

The year 2010 has been a year of important achievements for EEPFE building on what has been done during previous years. In 2010 EfD Ethiopia hosted a dialogue on forests, governance and climate change in Africa together with Rights and Resources Initiative and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The dialogue outcome fed in to the 7th African Development Forum, and will possibly be an input for the global negotiations on climate change in Cancun and beyond. The Forum also co-organized the 4^th Annual Meeting of the Environment for Development (EfD) initiative in collaboration with the Secretariat of EfD initiative and partly with UNECA.  The Forum was also involved in policy interaction activities including work on climate change issues focusing on climate conventions, climate finance, carbon trading, and carbon markets with focus on Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular. This is a joint activity with EDRI through partial funding from the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) and this work is expected to be completed in 2011. Staff of the Forum has also been involved in work on green growth plan and strategy for Ethiopia sponsored by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and conducted by McKinsey and Co. in collaboration with EDRI and other government institutions.