New Project Finance course at NIPAM to empower officials

WINDHOEK – The Namibia Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM) is offering a new tailor-made course for local authorities and regional councils on project finance. 

“A fundamental problem facing regional and local governments in Namibia has been identified as the widening gap between the availability of financial resources and regional and local spending needs, particularly on land servicing and housing,” said NIPAM’s Executive Director, Maria Nangolo. 
She added that one of the main reasons for this increasing fiscal gap is the rapid growth of urban populations, which creates an ever-increasing demand for public services, new public infrastructure and its maintenance.

The second land conference in 2018, recommended that Namibia should find a sustainable funding for regional councils and local authority by developing a funding formula from national taxes to fund housing and land development at regional councils and local authority levels. With a number of government priorities, national tax alone cannot fund all government development projects. Local commercial banks, development banks and the private equity firms have a role to play to meet the government halfway.

In response to this need, NIPAM designed a three-day Project Finance course tailor-made for regional councils and local authorities to make use of project finance as a financing alternative mechanism for the delivery of land servicing and affordable housing.

Regional and local authorities in Namibia play an increasingly important role in the delivery of fundamental public services, particularly in the area of land and housing. While they are key in the distribution of land and housing in urban areas, they too have acute challenges, including project finance and management. 
Project finance is a financing model that can be used to finance projects such as land servicing and other commercial projects for local authorities by borrowing money from the financial institutions on a standalone basis. In this model, the financiers rely on future cash flows, as the primary sources of repayment (cash flows from the sales of serviced land) rather than using the local authorities’ balance sheet.

After the completion of this course, participants would have a full understanding of how to finance land servicing and the development of affordable housing and other municipality services using project finance.
Furthermore, the course aims to equip participants to be able to explain the legal framework for project financing in regional and local government; analyse risks associated with land and housing projects, identify ways for mitigating risks associated with land and housing projects; and explain sources of project financing for land and housing projects. 

The Project Finance course is suitable for project managers, procurement practitioners, all senior executives and management committees involved in the implementation of land and housing development projects, particularly at regional and local authorities.