Strengthening regional climate change governance through integrating gender-responsive climate action in Namibia

Strengthening regional climate change governance through integrating gender-responsive climate action in Namibia

Share this:
Project detail:
Timeframe:
-
Status: Completed
Countries: Africa, Namibia
Themes: Adaptation and resilience, Policy and practice

The University of Namibia (UNAM), in partnership with CDKN, launched this project in Namibia in October 2019. The project focuses on achieving climate-resilient rural and community development in Namibia by strengthening climate change governance at the regional and local level through the integration of gender-responsive climate action into regional plans and projects.

Context

This project builds on work done by the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR) project since 2014. One of ASSAR’s findings in Namibia was that unequal levels of power and influence between national and sub-national levels of decision-making through to local actors were the main systemic barrier with regards to adaptation governance in Namibia. In addition, it found that because social groups are heterogenous in their adaptive capacities, any adaptation strategy or intervention needed to take this into consideration.

Project objective

The project’s overall vision is to respond to three of the ASSAR project’s recommendations:

  1. Improving collaboration - among government, non-government organisations, academia and communities - to produce adaptation information that is reliable and relevant to local subsistence farmers while engaging with local communities;
  2. Adaptation policy approaches should consider interactions of gender, ethnicity, age, household composition, marital status and social capital as important determinants of vulnerability; and
  3. Building capacity of local actors to engage in local and cross-scalar adaptation governance is critical.

Project activities and outputs

The project will use the Oxfam Vulnerability Risk Assessment (VRA) methodology to:

(i) Identify risks and opportunities, create awareness of the regional level planning and decision-making bodies and community members regarding the implications of climate change on Namibia’s rural communities in Oshana Region.

(ii) Improve the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare (MGECW)’s institutional capacity to achieve a gender responsive and socially inclusive community development approach when selecting beneficiaries for income generating activities.

(iii) Engage with Constituency Development Committees as well as Regional level platforms in Oshana and Omusati Regions to create climate change urgency and gender-responsive climate change actions at these levels.

Partners: The Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN), the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare (MGECW), the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development, the Oshana Regional Council, the Omusati Regional Council, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (including the Namibia Environmental Education Network – NEEN), Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL), Development Aid from People to People (DAPP) and the Ministry for Agriculture, Water and Forestry

Related

Resource
22nd October 2020
What does global warming of 1.5 degrees mean for Namibia? As part of the CDKN-funded project, Strengthening regional climate change governance through integrating gender-responsive climate action, the University of Namibia team have produced a graphic harvest on  what global warming of 1.5°C means for Namibia.
Resource
31st May 2021
Film: Adapting to climate change in the Oshana Region, Namibia The Oshana Region of Namibia has been hard-hit by climate change, especially droughts, which have drastically disrupted farming practices and livelihoods. This film explores the experiences of community members in adapting to the changing climate.
Resource
10th June 2021
Namibia is heating up: what global warming of 2°C means for this climate change hotspot A new animation from a CDKN-funded project in Namibia highlights the impacts of 2°C global warming on the country's vulnerable sectors, including agriculture, health and the economy, and recommends urgent adaptation action.
Resource
5th October 2021
Learning Story: Lessons from mainstreaming climate change in Namibia This learning story recounts the lessons learned by researchers and practitioners in Namibia over seven years of implementing different research projects on climate adaptation and resilience.
Feature
3rd August 2021
Namibia: Parliament as a vehicle for climate action A team from the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia, the University of Namibia and Reos Partners were invited to translate climate knowledge into action. Here, they describe how they rose to the challenge - and trained Namibian Parliamentarians on the implications of 1.5 degrees of global warming.