The new Norwegian government has proposed a 400 million kroner (US$65 million) cut to the 2014 budget of its Forests and Climate Initiative under which Guyana and several other tropical rainforest countries receive money to protect their forests.
The cuts were proposed by Minister of Finance Siv Jensen and laid in the Storting (Norway’s Parliament) on Friday. Under Norway’s Climate and Forest Initiative, it was proposed that up to three billion kroner would be made available annually to prevent deforestation in developing countries. The government of former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg had proposed a budget of 2.9 billion kroner for 2014. However, the new Conservative government led by Prime Minister Erna Solberg, has moved to reduce this sum citing the sloth in developing concrete projects by recipient countries.
“Recipient countries have shown that they need time to develop concrete assistance projects. This indicates that the grant proposal can be reduced without incurring reduced activity. Government reduces the proposed appropriation for 2014 by 400 million to 2 512.5 million (kroner) respectively. If the need for funding for performance-based payments in