Amazon Fund, Phase II

active

The Fundo Amazônia was set up in 2008 by the Brazilian government and the Brazilian development bank BNDES to mobilize additional financial resources for combating deforestation and reducing emissions in the Amazon. The fund is intended to help implement the emission reduction targets set out in the National Climate Change Policy, which call for an 80% reduction in annual deforestation in the Amazon between 2005 and 2020. To this end, the fund raises financial contributions and uses them for projects in the areas of protected areas, sustainable resource use, environmental control and land titling, among others. The beneficiaries are population groups that benefit from tropical forest conservation, including indigenous peoples, traditional population groups and small farmers. The fund establishes an innovative mechanism for environmentally-based transfer payments from industrialized countries to home countries of globally important environmental resources and contributes to a global environmental policy process that should lead to an appropriate distribution of environmental costs and benefits. Norway has so far paid a contribution of USD 1.0 billion to BNDES and promised funds of USD 600 million. Germany contributed EUR 18 million (Amazon Fund; BMZ No. 2008.6683.0) and EUR 3 million (Fast Start Fund; BMZ No. 2010.5202.6) as part of its Financial Cooperation (FC). A complementary TC project implemented by GIZ advises BNDES and other stakeholders on the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the fund and the projects financed from it.