By:Hertha Ekandjo
Namibia has secured a N$9 million grantfrom the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) to kickstart putting together of the country’s Investment Plan for the design of its Nature, People and Climate (NPC) Programme.
The funding was secured through the Climate Investment Fund (CIF) from various multilateral development banks, which are AfDB, World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC).
The grant was approved in October 2022 under the CIF Nature, People and Climate Programme.
The CIF NPC programme, launched in June 2022, deploys nature-based solutions that acknowledge linkages among land use, climate-change mitigation and adaptation, and the improvement of the sources of livelihoods of rural communities and Indigenous people.
The Namibia Investment Plan is supposed to be developed and submitted by April 2024.
The AfDB`s Division Manager of Agriculture and Agro Industry, Garba Laouali congratulated Namibiaon behalf of the multilateral development banks for the success.
“On behalf of the partnership of Multilateral Development Banks, namely the African Development Bank, World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC), I wish to sincerely congratulate the Government of Namibia for securing the support of the Climate Investment Funds to this significant process of preparing the Namibia Investment Plan under the Nature, People and Climate (NPC) Programme,” Garba expressed.
Garba shared this information on Wednesday during a meeting of the Joint Multilateral Development Bank Scoping Mission for Namibia Climate Investment Fund Nature, People And Climate Investment Programme.
Namibia submitted an Expression of Interest under this NPC Programme and was invited to work with the multilateral development banks to prepare an Investment Plan.
Namibia was one of the few countries whose Expression of Interest was approved by the CIF Global Climate Action Programme (GCAP) Sub-Committee in October 2022.
According to Garba, the selected countries and regional groups are Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia and the Zambezi River Basin Region, consisting of Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania.
Apart from the National Investment Plan, Namibia was also selected to participate in the Zambezi River Basin Region Investment Plan.
The AfDB has a long history of partnership with Namibia, which started in 1991 and has resulted in 42 project approvals to the cumulative value of N$27.962,550 billion (USD1.485 billion).
Meanwhile, the Primary Deputy Director, Multilateral Environmental Agreements, Department of Environmental Affairsin the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, Petrus Muteyauli, said the National Investment Plan would take a year of preparation and would take five years to implement.
According to him, the goal is that by 2050, Namibia’s critical ecosystems show off resilience to climate change, providing nature-based mitigation and adaptation solutions and supporting green jobs at the same time reducing poverty.
In the agriculture sector, the AfDB has two ongoing operations. This includes the Namibia Agricultural Mechanisation and Seed Improvement Project, a N$1 billion investment project.
The project’s objectives are to enhance agricultural productivity to reduce annual importation of staple cereal crops/grains, facilitate job creation, and enhance household incomes, which will improve the lives of rural people.
This is achieved through Agricultural Mechanisation, Strengthening the Certified Seed Systems and Building Capacity of local agriculture institutions.
The second operation in the sector is a N$18 million (USD 950,000 million) Technical Assistance Grant for the Namibia Feed Africa – Agricultural Transformation Programme.
The grant supports the government in carrying out key feasibility studies on Crop and Livestock Value Chains Development, Youth in Agribusiness and Agricultural Financial and Risk Sharing Mechanism, for future investment programmes in the sector.
The AfDB says it is ready to support the government in its plans to develop an integrated and multi-year approach to promote sustainable agricultural development, and also to mobilise innovative financing including climate finance to achieve the targeting objectives.