Green, Resilient Recovery Rapid Readiness Support in Namibia Inception Meeting Held
The Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia under the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism as the National Designated Authority (NDA) to GCF successfully secured funds from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) valued at Three Hundred Thousand USD (300,000.00 USD) for a Readiness Funding project titled “Green, Resilient Recovery Rapid Readiness Support in Namibia” (NAM-RS-004). The project will run for seven (7) months. The Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF) as an accredited entity to the GCF, is the delivery partner for this project. The Funds were secured on the 31st December 2021.
In addition to providing Direct Access Entities (DAE) such as the EIF with grants funding, the GCF also provides readiness and preparatory support activities to enhance country ownership and to ensure access during the early stages of the GCF. The support provided is cross-cutting and ongoing and iterative to strengthen the interaction between the county and the GCF. The readiness programme targets all developing counties, however, prioritizes the particular vulnerable counties such as LDCs, SIDS, and African States.
The readiness and preparatory support programme has five (5) main activity areas: Strengthening the National Designed Authority and Focal Partners, Developing Strategic Frameworks such as NAPs, Preparing Entities for Accreditation, Developing Pipelines, Sharing Information and Experiences and all these five main areas are centred around the National Designated Authority that is responsible for focal point oversight and being assisted by the Environmental Investment jointly as a delivery partner for this readiness supported project.
The one-day inception meeting served as a platform for the introduction of the readiness project to the targeted stakeholders, project implementation modalities, familiarizing stakeholders with the project’s objectives, intended activities and to ensure ownership and scope of the readiness programme.
The Readiness and Preparatory Support project objective is therefore to support the feasibility study on the three (3) green valleys as identified in the Green Hydrogen Strategy (GHS). Namibia aspires to create at-scale green fuels industry with a production target of 10- 12 Mtpa hydrogen equivalent by year 2050. To this end, it will develop three hydrogen valleys: in the southern region of Kharas, the central region including Walvis Bay port and the central region, and the northern region of Kunene. Namibia also aspires to establish an integrated, thriving green ecosystem across Southern Africa by creating synergies in shared infrastructure, manufacturing collaboration and power exports, e.g., with South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Angola.
The projects’ executing entity is Office of the President’s through the Performance Delivery Unit (PDU) with support of the Ministry of Environment Forestry and Tourism Environmental Investment Fund (EIF) which is the GCF accredited Entity. The National Planning Commission (NPC) as well as the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) are the key stakeholders identified in the implementation of this project. The two were deemed essential to project implementation; given their mandate of overseeing the Energy and mining sector as well as that of spear heading national development respectively. It is expected that the stakeholders will also add value to the outcomes of the feasibility studies in the three valleys by partaking in the validation process as well as linking the recommendations to the country’s developmental priorities.
According to the Green Hydrogen Strategy (2022), Namibia is rightly positioned to partake in reducing the anticipated global hydrogen demand-supply gap and lower the cost of the net-zero transition. Many countries will not be able to meet their demand fully or cost effectively through domestic production; instead, they will rely on energy partnerships with countries that have more abundant renewable resources to close supply gaps and lower costs. Its natural endowments that Namibia enjoys gives Namibians a comparable advantage and enables the country to make tremendous contribution to the global transition to net-zero while addressing its socio-economic inequalities. It is anticipated that the country will be able to form broadly shared prosperity for its people through the Green Hydrogen production and exports in a long-term horizon.
To date Namibia has been a receipt of 6 readiness supported projects which are: NAM-RS-001: Assist the accredited entity (AE) EIF put in place required policies, NAM-RS-002: Assist the NDA develop the GCF country strategy, NAM-RS-003: Strategic frameworks support for Namibia through CTCN and UNEP 2019, NAM-RS-004: Green, Resilient Recovery Rapid Readiness Support in Namibia, NAM-RS-005: Developing key legislation, regulation, policies and concept notes for climate action in Namibia and NAM-RS-006: Support for accreditation of direct access entities in Namibia.
The inception workshop that took place on the 13th April 2023 in Windhoek, was attended by government officials, CEOs of various entities and the Civil society at large. Presentations at the inception meeting ranged from overview of the Green Climate Fund, National Green Hydrogen Strategy, NDA role in Readiness Programmes, Introduction of the Readiness Programme, Logical Framework & Implementation arrangements and Workplan.
More information on the green, resilient recovery rapid readiness support in Namibia project can be accessed at https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/NAPC/Support/Pages/GCF.aspx
