Michael Grewe: Head of Cooperation for the German Embassy

The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), has to date contributed 5.6 million euros to EUROCLIMA+ and is actively participating in the design and monitoring of this regional programme in coordination with the European Commission.

For the German government, the environment and climate change sectors are priorities in cooperation for development with the Latin American and Caribbean countries. In addition, for Germany these countries are allies in the fight against climate change because it is on this continent where there are more of the world’s natural riches and the most extensive tropical forests worthy of conservation.

This is why the German government supports a wide range of programmes and projects in Latin America and the Caribbean related to renewable energies, the conservation of biodiversity, the reduction of emissions derived from deforestation and forest degradation, as well as sustainable agriculture and best agricultural and livestock practices. In particular, we attach special importance to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and our Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), which is one of the EUROCLIMA+ programme’s priorities.

But German cooperation not only acts at a regional level, it also counts on bilateral cooperation between Germany and many of the Latin American and the Caribbean countries that consider the environment a priority area. Nearly 70% of the funds from German cooperation for development with the American continent are allocated to the environment.

Regarding the theme of this workshop on Resilient Food Production in Guatemala (May 14 to 17, 2019), the high number of organisations involved in innovative food production projects that are resilient to climate change demonstrates the importance of this issue in the region. Guatemala is one of the countries most affected by the impacts of climate change and droughts, along with the loss of crops that leads to a great lack of food and malnutrition for the most affected part of the population. For this reason, the climate change adaptation project (Adaptate) is, among other activities, advising farmers of the Dry Corridor to use plants better adapted to the adverse climatic conditions.

I would like to wish all of you a fruitful, dynamic and interesting workshop. I hope it is highly relevant to the work on your projects and contributes to establishing and strengthening exchanges among the representatives of all the organisations and institutions present.

This text is a transcript of the speech given by Michael Grewe: Head of Cooperation of the German Embassy during the inauguration of the Regional Workshop on Resilient Food Production, from May 14 to 17. More information about the workshop:   Workshop press release