Green View Point
Editor’s Note: Lot Ndamanomhata Editor-in-Chief
I am excited to be pinning down the Editor’s note. As we enter 2022, We do so with renewed commitment and hope that will lead to the prosperity and sustainable development of all the livelihoods of the Namibian people.
The year 2021 proved to be a challenging one as Namibia, like all other nations, was faced with the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We lost loved ones and colleagues. May their souls continue resting in eternal peace. Despite the myriad of challenges experienced, we remained resilient, optimistic and hopeful about the future.
The year 2022, as declared by His Excellency Dr Hage Geingob to be a year of reimagining, allows us to closely look at the possibilities and reimagine the new realities of he way in which we do business, the way we work & the way we connect with others.
We at EIF are committed to looking at new possibilities for bettering the services we offer and seeing how we can improve our engagement with our stakeholders in the light of the current world we live in.
I must express my profound gratitude to all the EIF employees for their continuous hard work and the sterling job that they continue to do in the execution of our mandate, and I am certain that in the new normal that we live in, they will continually come up with new ways of delivering world-class service.
I also wish to extend my gratitude to the team that put this informative and informationsharing edition together, which not only outlines the activities carried out by the EIF but also talks about our success stories. It gives me pleasure, therefore, to share the read with our staff, service providers, stakeholders and the rest of the nation.
May the year 2022 be a year of fulfilment, success and yet another opportunity to transform our country, to be the best version of what our founders had striven for. Happy reading and viewing
Lot Ndamanomhata Manager: Corporate Communications
Sustainable Development Awards
The Fund successfully hosted the Sustainable Development Awards. Hosted under the theme “accelerating the green economy transformation as we recover from Covid-19”. The Sustainable Development awards recognise the outstanding contributions made by Namibians in the field of sustainable development. The 2021 sustainable development awards targeted the private sector and SMEs, community-level natural resource management and utilisation initiatives, research and development, youth action for sustainable development, pioneering journalism in the field of sustainable development, green banks, the school in action for sustainable development, women in action for sustainable development and thought leadership. The Awards recognised the importance of integrating sustainability into the core of business and industry as well as the daily lives of Namibians from all walks of life. The sponsors for the awards included First National Bank of Namibia, Agribank of Namibia, and Namibia Wildlife Resorts and BDO Namibia. The Sustainable Development Award aims to identify and reward institutions, including individuals who have demonstrated leadership, innovation, and excellence in environmentally friendly practices, while encouraging performance of best sustainability practices.
The Sustainable Development Awards were first held in 2015 and were based on a joint idea of the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia and the Sustainable Development Advisory Council. The second edition of the awards were held in 2017. The third edition took place on 21 May 2021.
The awards were held in conjunction with the Sustainable Development Advisory Council, Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia and the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.
IREMA PROJECT DELIVERS IN KUNENE
The Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia’s IREMA Project capacitates farmers on small stock farming
beneficiaries. The agreement plans to ensure the sustainability of the intervention. As per this agreement, the beneficiaries are expected to revolve the first ten does after 18 months and then ten does after 36 months. To ensure the productivity of the small stock received, the project team, together with technical staff members from the Ministry of Agriculture Water and Land Reform in collaboration with Agribank’s Advisory Services, offered three days of training that provided both theoretical and practical skills to the beneficiaries.
The IREMA Project will still distribute more than 2000 goats to vulnerable farmers in the Kunene region. Among other things, the project promotes climateresilient development through supporting adaptation interventions, including sound rangeland management, rehabilitation of boreholes, rehabilitation of the green schemes, provision of fuel-efficient stoves, supply and installation of drip irrigation systems, drought-resilient seeds at the household level and development of an early warning system tailored for Kunene region.
NILALEG Project hands over grants
The Fund together with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism successfully hosted the NILALEG Project grants hand over at the Okatjandja Kozomenje Conservancy, Okorosave Village, Kunene Region.
The Namibia Integrated Landscape Approach for Enhancing Livelihoods and Environmental Governance to Eradicate Poverty (NILALEG) Project handed over ten (10) grants under three investment windows, namely crop and rangeland management agroforestry and nature-based enterprise. The grants handed over have a combined monetary value of Six Million, Eight Hundred and NILALEG Project hands over grants Beneficiaris of the NILALEG Project receiving their grants.
Green View Point | July 2022 - Volume 5, No. 4 5 The Communities Empowered Through EDA Project The Empower to Adapt: Creating Climate Change Resilient Livelihoods Through Community Based Natural Resource Management in Namibia (CBNRM EDA) Project held a handover ceremony of sixteen (16) completed projects. The Green Climate Fund, through the Environmental Investment Fund (EIF) of Namibia’s Empower, to Adapt: Creating Climate Change Resilient Livelihoods through Community Based Natural Resources Management in Namibia (CBNRM EDA) Project Grant Facility, financed 31 grants projects to gazetted Community Forests and Communal Conservancies in 12 of the 14 political regions of Namibia. The funded projects have to date contributed towards empowering rural CBNRM communities in Namibia by increasing their resilience to adverse impacts of climate change such as protracted droughts, increased flood events, reduced crop production and livestock losses. Additionally, the interventions implemented by the projects are directly contributing toward the realisation of Namibia’s obligations to national and international climate change goals, objectives, and frameworks.
The sixteen (16) projects handed over are to the value of sixty-six million Namibia dollars (N$ 66 000 000 and were awarded to the communities located in Otjozondjupa, Omusati, Oshikoto, Kunene, Kavango East, Kavango West, Zambezi, Erongo and //Karas regions.
These self-determined community climate change adaptation interventions are aimed at improving livelihoods through the provision of water rehabilitated infrastructures, fire management, renewable energy and energy efficiency, poultry farming, livestock breeding scheme, bush to feed, hydroponics for horticulture and fodder production systems and a flood relief centre with supporting facilities such as a boat and an early warning system. CBNRM EDA Completion Grants Handover Ceremony Twenty-Eight Thousand Seven Hundred and ThirtySix Namibian Dollars Only (NAD 6,828, 736.51).
The project is aimed at promoting an integrated landscape management approach in key agricultural and forest landscapes, reducing poverty through sustainable nature-based livelihoods, protecting biodiversity and restoring forests as carbon sinks, and promoting Land Degradation Neutrality. The project is unique in many ways. It firstly utilises a landscape approach to addressing environmental and climate-induced threats to Namibian livelihoods.
This approach seeks to provide tools and concepts for managing land to achieve social, economic, and environmental objectives in areas where agriculture, forest management, and other productive land uses compete with environmental and biodiversity goals. Towards the end of last year, the Fund published the Second call for proposals between 10 September 2021 and 31 December 2021. The grants management team is busy evaluating the submissions to award more beneficiaries, and this announcement will be made in due course.
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https://www.eif.org.na/uploads/files/EIF%20Newsletter%20D4(1).pdf
