Namibia Kickstarts CLEWs

The National Planning Commission (NPC) supported by the United Nations has commenced the implementation of the Climate, Land, Energy and Water systems (CLEWs) Initiative at the Inception Meeting convened on 22 July.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Ned Sibeya Deputy National Chief Development Advice, representing the Executive Director of the NPC, noted that “The pursuit of sustainable development objectives requires management of an intricate web of challenges, issues and concerns. Our societies and natural environment consist of highly interlinked systems that depend on, and interact with, each other. CLEWs support countries national capacity for policy coherence and integrated modelling. In this regard, CLEWs could provide a framework for modelling and revising Namibia’s NDCs as an integral part of the Harambee Prosperity Plan II where they relate to actions in the water, energy and land sectors.” 

Representing the United Nations in Namibia, Ms. Farayi Zimudzi, Chair of the UNPAF Economic Progression Pillar and FAO Representative expressed that “ We are pleased at the convening of this meeting by NPC, to initiate work for the implementation of Activity 1.2.1 “Strengthen the design and implementation capacities of government institutions at all levels in the area of productivity of agriculture, MSMEs, value chains” under the Economic Progression Pillar of the United Nations Partnership Agreement Framework (UNPAF), jointly with the Government of the Republic of Namibia.”

The agriculture sector features significantly in the recently launched HPP2 under the Economic Advancement Pillar, GOAL 2 Enhance Productivity of Priority Economic Sectors, Activity 3. Unlock the economic potential of the Agricultural sector. But the agricultural sector depends on, and is influenced by climate, land, energy, and water. This accentuates the importance of having reliable comprehensive synthesized information to guide sound decision-making.

Mr. Thomas Alfstad Inter-Regional Advisor at UNDESA, presented CLEWs: The Climate, Land, Energy and Water systems (CLEWs) modelling framework is a tool for integrated assessment of resource systems that provides a means to analyze and assess the interlinkages that exist among energy, water and agricultural systems as well as their impacts on - and vulnerability to – climate change. CLEWs is designed to help identify and quantify the trade-offs and synergies that may exist in simultaneous pursuit of policy goals in each area to support a coherent and cohesive process for strategy and policy formulation. It thereby provides a means to explore how decisions on strategies, investments and technology choice will impact development goals and indicators across sectors and domains. 

The UN has been supporting countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America with the development, transfer and application of the CLEWs methodology for national development planning and policy for the past five years.

CLEWs requires a whole of government approach across sectors through institutional coordination for model development and implementation in support of policy formulation/scenarios.  

Mr. Alex Shimuafeni, Statistician-General & CEO at Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) welcomed the initiative, committing collaboration on data, which is both an input to, and output from CLEWs.

Also present at the meeting were Senior Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform; Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism; Ministry of Mines and Energy; the University of Namibia and the Namibia University of Science and Technology.  

A group of UN Agencies including FAO, UNDESA, UNECA, UNDP, UNICEF, UNIDO and WFP, will be supporting the Government in the implementation of this activity, with the support of the UN Resident Coordinator (RC).

For Additional Information Contact: 

1. Ms. Ndaendomwenyo Sheya, National Development Advice—NPC (NSheya@npc.gov.na ) 
2. Ms. Eunice Ajambo, Economist & Development Coordination Officer—UN Namibia (ajambo@un.org) 
3. Mr. Gebhardt Tjiho, National Programme Officer—FAO Namibia (Gebhardt.Tjiho@fao.org)