Climate Fund should increase its visibility- Shifeta

The Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta said cumbersome procedures and lack of information slows objectives set in the Green Climate Fund and added that the fund should increase its visibility through extensive outreach initiatives.
Shifeta said this recently at the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, which is under way in Morroco.
He said that the Green Climate Fund should have a strong presence in the various regions of the United Nations by establishing regional offices.
“This could help many countries to speedily access funding. Therefore, we urge the Board of the Green Climate Fund to endorse this idea as soon as it is practically possible,” Shifeta said.
Adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change is a costly undertaking, which places a heavy burden on national budget, Shifeta stressed. He added that the loss and damages to infrastructure due to floods, sea level rise as well as the loss of livestock, adding that crop failures increase this resource burden even more.
The minister said that this situation calls for the urgent, full capitalization of the Green Climate Fund. However, he noted with great concern that the slow process of the capitalization of the Green Climate Fund, limits the possibilities of countries involved in the fund to access adequate finance for adaptation, which is a key priority for developing economies.
“Our countries continue to bear the brunt of high economic and social costs arising from frequent climate change related disasters such as droughts and floods. We are now heavily paying for the impacts of a problem that we did not cause. Furthermore, our efforts to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change are inhibited by a lack of means of implementation, particularly financial resources,” Shifeta said.
Furthermore, Shifeta said even though adaptation is prioritised there is equal involvement in mitigation actions adding that Namibia has put in place plans for large-scale investments in renewable energy.
“We would like to appeal to developed countries to provide finance for these investments through various financial mechanisms in order to operationalise them as soon as possible. We look forward with great anticipation to the mobilization of the promised US$100 billion for climate finance,” Shifeta said.