The social isolation scenario due to Covid-19 has not totally halted the work of the PCI Institute during April. The members of the founding organizations have been having all the meetings, as well as the Board meeting, online.
During the meeting, the executive director, Fernando Sampaio, shared information regarding the activities that are being developed for putting the 2020 Plan of Action into practice, including the communication hub, which sets out a series of strategies for improving the institute’s dialogues with members, partners, supporters and society as a whole. In this first stage, the workgroup from this hub has designed a Reference Term that will serve as the base for hiring communication services for the Institute. The document containing guidelines for using the PCI brand has also been compiled. Both of them are in the process of being analyzed and revised by the members of the Board.
Another subject covered was regarding the technical mission carried out by the German bank KfW and the German Technical Cooperation – GIZ – in Mato Grosso, the aim of which is to evaluate the implementation processes of programs and to search out new investment opportunities.
The third mission for monitoring the Mato Grosso REDD Early Movers (REM) by the German bank KfW took place from the 17th to 25th March and its main aims were to evaluate the general progress of the program, how it was moving forward and the operational and implementation challenges, as well as agreeing with the priorities and measures for making it effective in the state.
In a series of virtual meetings, the State Department for the Environment (Sema-MT) presented the strategies and actions of the government to combat deforestation. At the same time, the General Coordination of the REM Program, which includes Sema, PCI, and other departments and bodies responsible for implementing them, presented the steps forward and challenges involved in carrying them out.
The challenge of the REM Program, whose partner for financial management and resources is the Funbio, is to carry out further actions that will directly benefit the rural farmers, family farms and indigenous peoples who are helping to keep the forests from being eliminated and are promoting the sustainable development of Mato Grosso. This will be fundamental for guaranteeing the investments from the KfW in a new phase of the Program since the REM has contributed to the sustainable production, conservation, and inclusion goals of the PCI Strategy.
“We are highly satisfied with the Mato Grosso REM Program, which is in full swing. Most of the resources are reinvested at a local level and directly benefit the local farmers, indigenous groups, and forest peoples”, said Klaus Köhnlein from KfW.
At the same time, the German Technical Cooperation (GIZ) has run its own mission for building an additional scope of Technical Cooperation to the REM Program, with investments in the State of Mato Grosso expected to be 2 million Euros for the next two years.
Over the last few years, support from GIZ for Mato Grosso has been centring mainly on the topics of socio-environmental safeguards, participative governance processes, compiling the sub-program for the indigenous peoples under the REM and an ombudsman mechanism for the Program.
“The general objective of this new phase of Cooperation is to guarantee that the REM Program can strengthen the PCI’s Inclusion goals in the State of Mato Grosso. As a result, it is expected that the investments should meet the specific needs of the indigenous peoples and traditional communities in Mato Grosso, that the PCI strategies in these territories will be strengthened and that other states in the Amazon region will be able to develop REDD+ mechanisms,” explained Anselm Duchrow from GIZ.
The meetings with KfW and GIZ were held virtually, on account of the need for social isolation to ensure the safety of all during the Covid-19 scenario, in compliance with guidelines from the World Health Organization.