Zimbabwe, Germany cooperate on environmental management

Hon Mangaliso Ndlovu, the Minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism, and Hospitality Industry yesterday met with the Secretary of State in the German Federal Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety, and Consumer Protection, Mr. Stefan Tidow at his offices in Berlin as part of the engagement and re-engagement drive.

The Minister was accompanied by the Ambassador of Zimbabwe to Germany Her Excellency Alice Shava, Director Conservation and Research Zimparks Professor Edson Gandiwa, and the Chief Director for Tourism and Hospitality Management, Mrs. Tarirai Musonza.

The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety, and Consumer Protection abbreviated BMUV, is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has branches in Bonn and Berlin.

The ministry’s primary functions include coming up with fundamental national environmental policy and informing and educating the public about environmental issues. The functions also include environmental remediation and development in Eastern Germany; climate protection and energy; air quality control; Noise abatement;  conservation of groundwater, rivers, lakes, and seas; Soil conservationand remediation of contaminated sites; enacti9ng waste management and recycling policy’ managing chemicals safety, environment, and health; taking precautions against emergencies in industrial plants; protection, maintenance, and sustainable utilization of biodiversity; ensuring safety of nuclear facilities; managing nuclear supply and disposal; and radiological protection.

Hon Ndlovu said there are areas of convergence where the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism, and Hospitality Industry can cooperate with the BMUV. These areas of cooperation are outlined below.

ENVIRONMENT

• In air quality management policy, key lessons can be learnt from Germany’s experiences in urban air quality management, particularly from the Immediate Action Programme for Clean Air which ran from 2017 to 2020.
• Under the programme, funding was provided to municipalities with particularly high NO_x pollution, to improve air quality and sustainably in the short term.
• the Germany government provided around two billion euros to towns and cities to combat air pollution by electrifying public transportation and retrofitting diesel buses.
• Zimbabwe can also benefit from cooperating with Germany in technology transfer in air quality monitoring instrumentation.
• Currently, no reference-grade ambient air quality monitoring stations exist in Zimbabwe, and good quality emissions monitoring technologies are scant, making it difficult for the country to make science-driven policy interventions to the air pollution problem. Therefore, cooperation with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection of the Federal Republic of Germany in the area of air quality and emissions monitoring will significantly benefit Zimbabwe.
• Waste management – sharing experiences in liquid, solid and hazardous waste management will be beneficial for both countries. This can cover the design, construction and operation of landfills and other waste repositories.

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT

• The Federal Republic of Germany has been central to the establishment and development of KAZA TFCA since signing of the KAZA Treaty in August 2011.
• The KAZA Secretariat on behalf of the five KAZA partner states entered into financing agreement with KfW Bank, Germany.
• The financing agreement was package into three finance programming phases i.e., Phase I, Il and Ill. Phase I projects came into effect in 2011 valued at €8 million. Phase Il project values at €12 million started in 2013.
• Phase Ill projects valued at €15.5million started in 2018. This brings KfW project funding to €35.5million in total.
• Zimbabwe did not get any meaningful benefit under phase I budget.
• Zimbabwe started benefitting from the KFW budget during KAZA Phase Il project and the funds were channeled through KAZA Secretariat. Under phase Il budget Zimbabwe received support for water augmentation project focusing on rehabilitation of Maitengwe/Mabhongane Dam.
• The same project was packaged together with the development of Mabale Cultural and Tourism Centre. The two projects packaged together were valued at €300,000.
• Zimbabwe also received support towards the development of Hwange National Park Tourism and Security Gate whereby a budgetary support of €150,000 is available.
• Under the same project programming phase, Zimbabwe also received funding support worth €190,000 for procurement of law enforcement equipment. This budget line supported procurement of four law enforcement vehicles for the Zimbabwe component of KAZA TFCA.
• Under the Phase III, the Financing Agreement signed in May 2018 for several Wildlife Dispersal Area projects such as the one between Zimbabwe and Botswana on human wildlife conflict projects in the Hwange Kazuma Chobe Wildlife Dispersal Area.
• Our CAMPFIRE Association is partnering with Birdlife Botswana and Kalahari Conservation Society on each case implementing different projects.
• Germany Government also supported the Zimbabwean Government in South East Lowveld in several projects through European Union funded projects. The key ones are as follows:

2025. Sustainable Integrated Landscape Management project where the EU is funding to the tune of €5 million over a period of 5 years from 2021 to 2025.
2026. Community tourism project at Bosman’s Camp and picnic sites in Chiredzi South in the Great Limpopo TFCA was funded the European Union and implemented by SATWILD.

• Sengwe-Tshipise Wilderness Corridor Feasibility Study that sought to establish the socio-economic and ecological viability and opportunities in the corridor between Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou national Park and South Africa’s Kruger National Park was funded by the European Union through SAT-WILD and received a total US$35 000 in 2020.

1. “Technical Assistance for Assessment and Formal Completion of a Border Post between South Africa and Zimbabwe in Chikwarakwara” where the European Union channeled a total of 300 000 Euros through International Organisation for Migration with the work done between February and October 2022 in the Great Limpopo TFCA.
2. Legacy Landscape Fund, a joint initiative by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and other partners is channeling a total of US$IS million as funding for the Management of Gonarezhou National Park in terms of Wildlife Protection and Law Enforcement, covering a period of 15 years from 2021 to 2035.

• Zimbabwe continues working with partners in conservation and to date an agreement was signed with Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS).
• The partnership has been instrumental in supporting biodiversity conservation and transforming community livehoods. The partnership has seen state of the art conservation technologies, equipment, and infrastructure.

TOURISM

• Tourism is one of the key pillars of the economy of Zimbabwe alongside aagriculture, mining and m It provides an effective tool for poverty alleviation through its linkages with other downstream sectors of the economy and plays an important role in environmental sustainability and conservation.
• The tourism sector in Zimbabwe is advancing its sustainability agenda in partnership with the private sector through sustainability programmes that help manage the environmental footprint while providing the best hospitality and leisure experience to visitors.
• The partnerships on green programmes by hotels in destinations like the Victoria Falls have resulted in saving of water, reduction of waste and improvement in energy efficiency.
• Hotels also partner national parks such as Hwange Safari Lodge supporting anti-poaching efforts by Hwange National Park through Anti-Poaching Units which are dedicated to conservation of our local wildlife and natural resources.
• The Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in tourism including Community Based Tourism Enterprises (CBTEs) can also contribute meaningfully to the sustainability agenda with the availability of financial and technical support.
• Thus, Zimbabwe to would like to cooperate with Germany through assistance to tourism SMEs including CBTEs for them to implement Smart Climate Technologies like green refurbishment through the installation of energy efficient equipment, water harvesting equipment as well as recycling of waste which all contribute positively to the tourism sector’s management of the environmental footprint.

CLIMATE CHANGE MANAGEMENT

• Climate change is one of the biggest threats to sustainable development with developing countries being the most vulnerable due to their high exposure, increasing severity of climate-induced extremes and low adaptive capacity.
• Over the past 50 years Zimbabwe has increasingly been affected by several climate-induced disasters such as recurrent droughts, Tropical Cyclones and storms, erratic rainfall and; general decline in rainfall amounts
• National average temperature has warmed at a rate of about 0.1°C per decade and projected to warm by 1.5 to 3.5°C by 2080.
• This has had an impact on water supplies and quality, food and nutrition security, health, hydro-electric power generation, human settlements and biodiversity, tourism and livelihoods amongst other key areas of human development, thereby impeding the country’s social and economic development aspirations envisioned in the National Development Strategy (NDS) 1 and beyond.
• The Paris Agreement requires countries to communicate their mid-century Low Greenhouse Gas Emission Development Strategies (LEDS) to the UNFCCC in line with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.
• Zimbabwe appreciates the support from the Germany Government towards a low emissions development trajectory, specifically:
  1. The Nitric Acid Climate Action Group (NACAG) support to Sable Chemicals Industries on the nitrous oxide abatement technology. The project is under Zimbabwe’s revised NDC and is already being implemented. NACAG is an initiative of the Germany Federal Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety, and Consumer Protection.
  2. Support through GIZ on refrigeration and air conditioning to enhance the training and transition towards ozone and climate-friendly technologies. From GIZ we have received training equipment, refrigerant recovery machines, exchange visits for lecturers, and in-country support for the training of technicians
• Zimbabwe’s Low Emission Development Strategy (LEDS) presents 38 mitigation actions across four sectors of the economy to promote low-carbon development in Zimbabwe between 2020-2050.
• The four sectors are as determined by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) namely:
  1. Agriculture Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU)
  2. Energy
  3. Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU) and
  4. Waste
• While being economically viable, mitigation measures will require an investment of US $7,880 million up to 2030.
• The Paris Agreement requires all countries to communicate their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), outlining how each country is going to reduce its emissions.
• The Revised NDC seeks to reduce economy-wide per capita emission by 40%, below the projected business as usual emissions scenario, by 2030 through 17 mitigation measures.
• The Revised NDC has mitigation priorities like renewable energy and energy efficiency, afforestation, reducing veld fires, biofuels, waste to energy initiatives and composting and electric mobility among others,
• Furthermore, the revised NDC makes adaptation priorities namely early warnings and disaster risk reduction, climate smart agriculture, climate resilient infrastructure development and sustainable water resources development and management.
• Zimbabwe’s proposed revised NDC is conditional on the provision of international climate change support. The mitigation target for Zimbabwe requires an estimated US $4.8 billion by 2030 in a combination of investment, capacity building and technology transfer.
• Zimbabwe with support from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) National Adaptation Planning Programme is in the process of mainstreaming climate change in development planning at national and subnational level.
• Through this project the development of Zimbabwe’s first National Adaptation Plan (NAP) is being finalized.
• The Plan highlights 21 adaptation options across seven sectors with the aim to enhance Zimbabwe’s adaptation and build resilience across key sectors. These sectors include: agriculture, water, health, infrastructure, human settlements, forestry and biodiversity and tourism.
• It is estimated that approximately US $1 billion per year is required to implement the prioritized adaptation process
• The NAP also focuses on enhancing institutional capacity to integrate climate change considerations in planning and budgetary processes, enhancing the management of climate information necessary to inform resilience interventions, resource mobilisation for national adaptation planning and a robust monitoring and evaluation system in place for tracking efforts towards adaptation.
• With support from the GCF, Zimbabwe developed a GCF Country Programme (2020-2024), a 4-year strategic document outlining the country’s climate change priorities for engagement with the GCF through its project pipeline.
• Five climate action national priorities were identified from key climate-related policies, strategies like the revised Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and draft National Adaptation Plan (NAP) and consultative processes, for GCF funding:

1. Climate smart Agriculture
2. Integrated Waste Management
3. Sustainable Forestry Management
4. Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
5. Early Warning and Disaster Risk Reduction

• To date, the Ministry has mobilised over US$40 million for climate resilience and low-carbon projects from the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
• Funding remains a major challenge to implementing Zimbabwe’s climate change priorities
• The Government welcomes collaborations and support from the Germany Government in implementing its climate change response interventions