Sida has decided to grant 160,000,000 SEK in continued support of the Environment for Development Initiative in the next four years. Thanks to Sida’s support, EfD will continue to address the most urgent environmental challenges in the Global South, help alleviate poverty, and contribute to sustainable development.
The world is currently facing unprecedented challenges. The United Nations has declared that we have entered into the decade of action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 with a need to transform our economies to escape devastating climate change and massive loss of biodiversity.
“EfD is a unique network of academic centers throughout the Global South designed to support domestic capacity, enabling local researchers to address these challenges in collaboration with each other and colleagues in the North", says EfD's Director Gunnar Köhlin.
"We are very honored by Sida’s continued support and their trust in us to contribute to the goals of the Swedish development cooperation.”
Linnéa Hermansen, responsible Program Manager at Sida, notes that “we have a long-standing and very valuable cooperation with EfD. It’s an organization with a unique network of talented researchers in the Global South that are well-equipped to address the environmental challenges that we face."
“The focus of EfD on supporting local capacity development and sustainable local institutions to address environment and poverty issues is perfectly aligned with our development strategies. We are particularly keen to see how EfD can further increase its support to young female researchers in the coming years", says Linnéa Hermansen.
EfD’s plans for the upcoming four years include continued support to applied policy-relevant research at EfD centers, with a focus on academic institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. Many projects are coordinated in collaborative programs to ensure synergies and learning between countries. Most importantly, all activities are linked to dialogues, workshops, and training for policymakers and other stakeholders to ensure that the research will improve policies in terms of poverty alleviation and increased sustainability.
By: Petra Hansson
