Addis Ababa, March 27, 2025 (FMC) – Ethiopia’s Minister of Planning and Development Ms. Fitsum Assefa has shared her country’s successful national innovative and locally available adaptation and mitigation climate actions across the sectors in the 2nd day of the Petrsberg Climate Dialogue 2025.
The Ms. Fitsum has participated in the 16th Petersberg Climate Dialogue (PCD) held on March 25-26 in Berlin.
On the occasion, Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative (GLI) and its success stories received praise during the dialogue which many agreed that it deserves scaling out to other countries. Fitsum presented the secrets of the success of GLI in which Ethiopia covers its land by 23.6% in 2023 which enjoyed about 6% increment from the 2019 level where the Green Legacy was started.
The Minister further stressed the initiative’s outcomes in supporting the lives and livelihood of the local community through the initiative’s systematic inclusion of fruit bearing trees and other agroforestry plant species which help the farmers to export some of the products such as avocado.
Minister Fitsum calls for recognition to such locally fit adaptation best practices with having mitigation co-benefits while also addressing the economic needs of developing countries for a better outcome in effectively responding to climate change globally.
According to her, the international community needs to step its financial and other means of implementation efforts for those prioritized climate actions and disproportionately affected countries such as Ethiopia.
Delegates of other countries that participated in the Petersberg Climate Dialogue 2025 applauded Ethiopia’s achievements in this regard and agreed to support the initiative for a regional and global impact, as reported by the Ministry of Planning & Development (MoPD).
On the sidelines of the dialogue, Fitsum Aseffa (PhD) also met with Assistant Secretary-General Mr. Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Just Transition and agreed to join forces to step up on climate policy planning process including the third generation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC3.0) in which Ethiopia launched a couple of days ago aiming at submitting it ahead of COP30, if possible in September 2025.
The two parties agreed to facilitate the participation of Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres in the 2nd Africa Climate Summit to be held in September 2025 in Addis Ababa.
Similarly, Ms. Fitsum also met with Pablo Vieira, the Global Director of the NDC Partnership Support Unit and agreed that the NDC Partnership Support Unit will support Ethiopia in developing an implementable NDC3.0 and also to work towards hosting a successful 2nd Africa Climate Summit.