GCF programme consultations start

The signing of the Accreditation Master Agreement (AMA) between the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Environmental Investment Fund (EIF) of Namibia commenced with the GCF programme consultations in Windhoek last week.According to the EIF, the consultations commenced on Wednesday with key stakeholders who are involved in the first project to be submitted to the GCF.Through this project, the EIF intends to establish a sustainable financing facility that supports value chains and market penetration of agriculture production to enhance long-term adaptation capacities within peri-urban environments."This sustainable financing facility will be key in creating jobs, upskilling workers, expanding service provision in areas underserved by the government and increasing the tax base to fund important social and economic development objectives," the EIF stated.Critical supportThe EIF said that the objective is to create a blended financing facility in the form of a green guarantee scheme under which the project will be used to de-risk the EIF Green Credit Line and attract additional investment through leveraging from the private sector and capital recycling.It said that urban households in Namibia are increasingly finding it difficult to generate income from subsistence agriculture."This is because climate change impacts, notably degraded lands, water scarcity and rainfall variability, keep subsistence agricultural production very low, with little chance of having surpluses that could be marketed."As a result, most people in rural areas resort to moving to urban areas in search of livelihood opportunities.Dense populationsMost of the migrants from rural areas and small towns usually settle in informal settlements in urban areas.This results in the proliferation of urban shacks, one of the most prominent phenomena of the growth of major towns and cities, and potentially one of the most pressing future challenges for cities and towns in Namibia."Climate change is considered a key driver of rural-urban migration in Namibia. This project is strongly aligned and seeks to scale up the successes from the recently funded project by the government of Japan titled ‘Strengthening Namibia Food Systems to Recover from Emergencies and Disease-Related Shocks through Building Back Better (BBB)’, which managed to reach up to 399 beneficiaries across four regions in Namibia."The project immediately responded to the emerging need for food security while strengthening the resilience of respective communities to respond to climatic shocks.Boosting resilienceAccording to the EIF, the interventions proposed by this project are intended to generate alternative income streams to complement subsistence agriculture through the inclusion of enterprise business solutions and value-added components, which ultimately enhance resilience to climate shocks.The project interventions will target those local authorities that have been identified to have constituencies with very low- to low-adaptive capacities.

GCF programme consultations start

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-10

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GCF programme consultations start

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-10

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