In an effort to address climate change in Namibia, a stakeholder and appraisal meeting was held last week to discuss a proposal that has to be submitted to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to receive about N$16.38 million in funding.

This new intervention is called 'Enhancing Namibia's capacity to establish a comprehensive Transparency Framework for Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of climate actions and reporting on Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) implementation under the Paris Agreement', under the Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) of the GEF.

Speaking at the meeting the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) deputy resident representative Armstrong Alexis said UNDP Namibia had partnered with the government through the environment ministry in yet another intervention to address climate change in Namibia.

CBIT is a fund under the GEF that supports developing countries to build institutional and technical capacity to meet the new requirements of the enhanced transparency framework as defined in Article 13 of the Paris Agreement.

Namibia and UNDP submitted a Project Identification Form (PIF) in July 2019 to get funds from CBIT. This PIF was approved by the GEF for an amount of US$1.1 million. The PIF provided a project description, a detailed project justification and an explanation of the expected results of the project, among other information relevant for the GEF. To get the funds from the CBIT, Namibia needs to submit to the GEF a full proposal package, which is mainly composed by a Project Document (ProDoc) along its annexes and an endorsement request signed. 

Alexis said the enhanced reporting framework requires Namibia to not only prepare institutional arrangements but to also set up, develop and establish robust monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system that is supported by tools and guidelines.

Gender and development specialist Inkeri von Hase said the establishment of a gender-responsive transparency framework for MRV was vital to ensure that the different needs, challenges and priorities of women and men were addressed

“In Namibia, climate change affects women and men differently on the basis of their different roles and responsibilities. Due to deeply entrenched gender inequalities, women bear the brunt of climate change.”

She said given the socially constructed roles of women as primary food producers and providers of water and cooking fuel for their families, they are particularly hard hit by climate change impacts. According to her, this is especially true for women and girls living in situations of poverty.

According to Von Hase women and girls constitute 75% of the workforce responsible for fetching water for the household and livestock and represent 59% of people engaged in skilled and subsistence agriculture. “They provide more than 90% of agricultural labour.” She further noted that men own 78% of cattle while women own 36% of goats, while the overwhelming majority of women do not own land (79%).

“In line with the principles of stakeholder engagement, which includes public, private and civil society that underlies UNDP programmatic approach, this meeting is another opportunity that UNDP and the environment ministry accords to the stakeholders to make final inputs to the project design,” said Alexis.

He said the CBIT Project has an overall objective to enhance Namibia's institutional and technical capacities to establish a comprehensive transparency framework for monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of climate actions and to report on nationally determined contributions (NDC) implementation under the Paris Agreement.

The project's three components are to enhance and strengthen Namibia's institutional arrangements for robust greenhouse gas inventories and transparency MRV system/framework for climate actions and national determine contributions.

The project also focuses on the provision of tools, training and assistance for meeting the transparency provisions established in the Paris agreement and national determined contributions (NDC) tracking.

Furthermore, the specific outcomes to be derived from the three components are that institutional arrangements for a national transparency framework are in place, enhancement of greenhouse gas inventories as per gaps and needs previously identified, building MRV capacities of support, as well as progress tracking tool on NDC and transparency in place

“During this event, the project will be presented to you as stakeholders for your consideration and recommendations before seeking the endorsement of the final project document and approval of the funding by the Global Environment Facility, prior to the implementation which will start later in 2020.”

Source: The Namibian Sun Newspaper, an article written by Ms. Ellanie Smit