Namibia Energy & Environment: 2010 and beyond

Climate Change Adaptation: Enhancing Institutional and Human Resource Capacity through Local Level Coordination of Integrated Rangeland Management and Support (CALLC)

National Implementing Partner: Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, Directorate of Engineering and Extension Services +264 61 208 7458 2008 -2012
Key Issues: UNCCD
Project Status: Ongoing
Location: Namibia, Ongwediva
Contact person: Ms. Sophie Kasheeta, National Project Director

Goals and objectives 

1. The goal of the project is to improve natural resources based livelihoods, ecosystem stability, functions and services in the Ohangwena, Omusati, Oshana and Oshikoko Regions. 

2. The overall objective: is CALLC will contribute to the goal by creating an enabling environment (knowledge, skills, capacity, and policies) for the adoption of sustainable land management and practices in the Ohangwena, Omusati, Oshana and Oshikoko.

3. Description / Background 

The government of Namibia has identified land degradation as a serious problem which demands remedial intervention. It has recognised that integrated sustainable land management strategies are needed to effectively address the underlying causes. Existing efforts on-the-ground are obstructed by a series of barriers, which undermine their efficacy. Although the government has been, and remains, fully committed to combating land degradation, insufficient capacity at systemic, institutional and individual levels, and inadequate knowledge and technology dissemmination are constraining the effectiveness of interventions and the sustainability of outcomes. 

Five Ministries, namely the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Ministry of Lands and Resettlement, Ministry of Regional and Local Government and Housing and Rural Development, and the National Planning Commission - have agreed in conjunction with the GEF and its Implementing Agencies, the European Union, GTZ and NGO community to overcome these barriers through a Country Pilot Partnership for Integrated Sustainable Land Management (CPP). The CPP comprises a suite of interventions to address the underlying causes of land degradation in Namibia. 

Enhancing Institutional and Human Resource Capacity through Local Level Coordination of Integrated Rangeland Management and Support (CALLC) is one of the suites of projects under the Namibia CPP programme. It will specifically contribute to Objective 2 of the CPP; identifying and disseminating cost-effective, innovative and appropriate SLM techniques which integrate environmental and economic benefits. The CALLC project intervention will be implemented in North Central Namibia (Ohangwena, Omusati, Oshana and Oshikoto Regions). These regions represent four of Namibia’s five most densely populated regions with more than 13 people/ sq km. 83% of the area in the four regions is at moderate to high risk of degradation.
 

Factors causing this situation include deforestation, overstocking and overgrazing, naturally high rainfall variability, limited awareness of carrying capacities of the land and high levels of poverty which place heavy dependence on natural resources. On top of these factors, is an absence of strong community-based institutions; the presence of strong cultural values placed on livestock; and the absence of alternatives for capital accumulation. CALLC will build and strengthen institutional environment for SLM and test ways and means for organizing communities to spearhead community-based SLM activities. CALLC will help to demonstrate that strengthened institutional capacity at local level is necessary for sustainable land management. CALLC will also seek to identify opportunities for local economic development compatible with SLM objectives, helping to make the economic and financial case for investment by the private sector, and development banks at local level. This is expected to improve the opportunities for investments in land use diversification, as needed to reduce the impetus for current land uses that are placing pressure on the functional integrity of dryland environments.

Table 1: Project Outcomes

Table 2: Project Budget

Selected Partners 

Funding is provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) www.thegef.org/gef/gef_country_prg/NA

Contact Details:
C/O The National Project Director: Director of Engineering and Extension Services 
Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry Directorate of Engineering and Extension Services 
Private Bag 13184
Tel. (061) 208 7458
Website:www.mawf.gov.na

C/O The Head of Energy and Environment Programme
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Energy & Environment Unit 
Private Bag 13329, Klein Windhoek 
Tel. + 264 61 204 6111 /6231
Website:www.undp.un.na