More funds availed to tackle climate change
The Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF) signed another agreement worth N$4.3 million with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) this week
Benedict Libanda, Chief Executive Officer of the EIF signed the agreement with Pa Ousman Jarju, GCF Director of Country Programming. The Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta witnessed the signing ceremony during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany on Wednesday.
The grant demonstrates the support the Green Fund is offering to direct access bodies and governments to aid them in accessing project funding. The financial support will be used to strengthen the institutional capacities of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET), which is the GCF National Designated Authority for Namibia, to efficiently engage with the GCF as well as to improve coordination in view of planning and climate programming for Namibia.
Moreover, the readiness grant will enable the NDA to conduct multi-stakeholder consultations, nationally, in order to ensure that its approach to country programming is underpinned by strong local engagement. This is in line with the immense responsibility of providing strategic leadership in ensuring that Namibia’s interactions with the GCF are in harmony with the country’s development priorities as well as with GCF investment criteria, which MET is tasked with in its role as the NDA.
It was further stated by EIF CEO Libanda that the EIF has built a pipeline of projects worth N$380 million in the areas of agricultural resilience, renewable energy and ecosystem adaptation for GCF submission before the end of 2017.
“The GCF is delighted that EIF continues to demonstrate strong leadership within the climate finance landscape in Namibia and the readiness grant will assist to ensure that Namibia benefits from the GCF,” stated Pa Ousman Jarju.
Under the National Adaptation Plans, Parties have agreed that the Adaptation Committee, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat, will further assist countries in the process to formulate and implement NAPs in 2018.
Under this funding window, Namibia will access US$3 million from the GCF for the formulation of its national adaptation plan, which will further strengthen national priorities for measures to address adaptation to climate change.
