The Environmental Investment of Namibia (EIF) has been awarded a Sustainable Finance Award by the city of Karlsruhe in Germany for Outstanding Sustainable Project Financing recognising its success in financing Climate-Change Resilient livelihoods.
The announcement was made on 7 September 2020 by Arshad Rab, CEO of the European Organisation for Sustainable Development (EOSD). EIF was established to generate and provide financial resources for sustainable development of Namibia through grants, loans and credit guarantee programs for green project finance, which have been identified as key financial instruments to achieve these objectives.
In addition, the EIF is setup with the main aim of providing sustainable source of funding to support environmentally sound development in Namibia and do so in a manner that complements programmes and actions of both the public and private sectors.
The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life and the economic wellbeing of this sector, thereby reducing the possibilities of them pursuing activities that degrade Namibia’s fragile environment and waste its natural resources.
The Karlsruhe Sustainable Finance Awards honours financial institutions or related organisations and leaders with significant contributions to the field of sustainable banking and finance. Namibia’s EIF was awarded for its recognition in outstanding success in long-term financing of exemplary financing in Climate-Change Resilient Livelihoods because of the projects that benefit local communities, protect the environment and ensure sustainable development. The establishment of the products such as the financial grants, concessional loans, green soft loans scheme, sponsorships and bursaries are all in line with the aims and objectives of the fund, which are to mobilise funding for the maintenance of an endowment fund that will generate income in perpetuity and allocate this income to activities and projects. This promotes the sustainable use of the environment and its natural resources, the maintenance of biological diversity and the ecological processes that underpin them; and thereby contribute to economic improvements for sustainable rural and urban development. These factors are the ones that have led the fund to be recognised for its hard work. The fund successfully mobilised more than N$1.2 billion of investment in Namibia over the past three years, in combination with multilateral and development finance institutions. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) financially supported the EIF with N$560 million in grants for climate change adaptation interventions. In 2018, the French Development Agency invested N$800 million through the Sustainable Utilisation of Natural Resources and Energy Financing programme (SUNREF Namibia), which is a three-year initiative dedicated to promoting new renewable energy finance. To date, more than 238 000 people have benefited and continue to benefit from different projects managed under the EIF. Overall, the fund has performed exceptionally well with regards to resources mobilisation and implementation of projects and monitoring of those projects, to ensure that they are carried out in line with the requirements of funds raised through the vigorous resources mobilisation efforts of the EIF staff, in raising funds to meet its vision and mission as an institution that was created to compliment the constitutional provision of ensuring sustainable development through resources and ensuring that environmental sustainability is at the core of the development efforts that comes through the interventions made by the fund.
“This award represents our improved communications tools to our international stakeholders as this fully acknowledges that the EIF as an institution is capable of producing shareholder returns on investments, both through financial and environmental impact. This award further demonstrates the cooperation, commitment and dedication of government more specifically the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, our committed and competent staff members and our stakeholders,” read a statement from EIF spokesperson Lot Ndamanomhata.
Ndamanomhata added that it is because of the impactful contributions the fund is making in the lives of the Namibian people that it is being recognised in this regard.
“The fund is committed to increasing the role of strategic corporate reporting in developing and maintaining shareholder support, advancing research-based decision-making and as an essential key to unlocking opportunities for mobilising additional resources, new business and new partnership towards sustainable development and mobilising more resources for Namibia,” Ndamanomhata concluded.