Minister of Environment Romanos Petrosyan had a webinar with officers of German Development Bank (KfW)

Today, the Minister of Environment Romanos Petrosyan had the first webinar with the representatives of German Development Bank (KfW). The meeting was attended by Deputy Minister Irina Ghaplanyan, Head of the Department  of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Environment Ruzanna Grigoryan, officers of German Development Bank (KfW), represented by Thomas Eisenbach, Head of Division for Energy and Natural Resources in the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia Department,  Project  Manager Frank Morchel,  KfW’s Director for South Caucasus Klaus Weigel,  Armenian Representative Zara Chatinyan.
The meeting took a note of  the status  of the joint projects in bilateral format and  their expansion.
Discussed our general vision for 14 socio-economic and environmental grant projects with a total budget of 350,000 euros of  financial assistance program of 8.25 million euros in the frames of “Support Program for Protected Areas-Armenia” (SPPA-A) project.
It was made a reference to “Biodiversity and sustainable local development in Armenia program” with the budget of 23.2 million euros, which is targeted at sustainable management of biodiversity hotspots and reducing anthropogenic impact in those areas, strengthening the potential of local stakeholders, as well as providing opportunities for sustainable financial assistance.
Within the framework of the grant provided by the Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF) to Armenia in 2020, wage supplementso of the employees of the specially protected areas of nature (SPAs) and other current expenses will be financed. The components of the regional cooperation were considered.
The last item on the agenda was the policy-based lending - environmental protection loan agreement, within the scopes of which the Ministry of Environment initiated a series of legislative and institutional reforms regarding sustainable forest management, biodiversity and specially protected areas of nature, and environmental standards and regulations.
Expanding and strengthening of international cooperation is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Environment. It is pivotal to direct international financial flows to the implementation of various environmental programs, as the world’s ecosystem is an integrated and complete organism, and demands joint effort and investment to be healthy and viable.