Windhoek
Through the Environmental Investment Fund (EIF) Namibia will soon be able to access grant funding totalling at least N$588 million to combat climate change.
Over the past six months the EIF has been working to join the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and become one of its key multilateral implementing agencies.
The GCF is a fund set up within the framework of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), founded as a mechanism to redistribute money from the developed to the developing world. Its aim is ostensibly to assist developing countries in adapting to and mitigating the impact of climate change. Announcing the accreditation yesterday, Environment and Tourism Minister, Pohamba Shifeta said it has been a daunting task. The process took account of a range of criteria, including fiduciary standards, good governance, transparency, leadership and financial management systems.
“I am proud to report that the EIF has demonstrated sufficient capacity in these areas and is now considered to be managed according to the highest international fiduciary standards,” Shifeta said. Out of 116 institutions that applied for accreditation around the world, the GCF has accredited only 20 so far.
The EIF is only the second national institution in Africa to be accredited.
“This is therefore a momentous achievement,”
Shifeta said, adding that the EIF has developed a succession strategy to access more than N$1 billion of grant funding from the GCF by the year 2018/19. The role of the EIF as an implementing agency involves the management and oversight of projects, including the origination, preparation and implementation of funding proposals, as well as the subsequent management of the key stages of the implementation through to its conclusion, on behalf of the provider of funds.
“The next task is for us to develop bankable proposals to the GCF and I am informed that the process is already underway to formulate and develop such proposals for submission to the Fund. I would like to see Namibia being among the first countries to access the Fund,” he said. Shifeta also announced that the GCF is in the process of allocating resources to its initial projects ahead of the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, where governments will negotiate a Universal Climate Agreement. An amount of US$10.2 billion (N$126.48 billion) for ‘country programming’ is allocated for this financial year. The GCF will support activities in developing countries using theme-based funding and is intended to be the centrepiece of efforts to raise US$100 billion (N$1.24 trillion) a year by 2020 for climate-related adaptation.