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Norway and Sweden Set up Poverty and Environment Fund

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (22 July 2003) - The governments of Norway and Sweden have set up a joint US$3.6 million Poverty and Environment Fund to be administered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Norway and Sweden will make initial contributions of NKr17 million ($2.35 million) and Skr10 million (US$1.25 million), respectively, to the fund over three years, according to ADB's Office of Cofinancing Operations (OCO).

The fund, approved by ADB's Board of Directors, is a multidonor umbrella facility that will focus on small-scale environment-related interventions that promote poverty reduction.

It will finance technical assistance projects and other activities in three main areas:

• Protection, conservation, and sustainable use of natural resources and ecosystem services
• Reduction of air and water pollution
• Disaster prevention and reduction of vulnerability to natural hazards.

"The fund will help finance pilot environmental interventions that reduce poverty or help poor people to contribute to environmental management," says Rolf Zelius, Deputy Director General and Chief Compliance Officer of ADB's Regional and Sustainable Development Department.

"Pilot activities under the fund will demonstrate innovative institutional arrangements, participatory approaches, or technical solutions with clear potential for successful replication, mainstreaming, and upscaling elsewhere."

The fund will also finance research and studies that can form the basis of policy dialogue, raising awareness, and building capacity on poverty-environment linkages.

It will also support dissemination of lessons learned and compilation of good practices for addressing the environmental dimensions of poverty.

The first installments will be remitted upon signing of the channel financing agreements/arrangements (CFAs).

As other donors are identified, their contributions will be effected through the signing of similar CFAs, subject to ADB management approval.

Philip Erquiaga, Principal Director of OCO, notes that "the fund complements ADB's existing poverty reduction and environment-related trust funds, such as the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, the Cooperation Fund in Support of the Formulation and Implementation of National Poverty Reduction Strategies, the Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund, and Canadian Cooperation Fund on Climate Change.

More at adb.org/media

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