The Office of the Prime Minister with technical and financial support from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) developed the national strategy for mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) into Development Planning. The strategy comes in the backdrop of evolving climate change impacts that are manifesting in increased frequency and severity of such disasters as droughts, floods, veld and forest fires, extremes of temperature.

The disaster damage and losses associated with climate related disasters are exercising negative effects on national development and diverting resources from development programmes to humanitarian assistance thus retarding progress for national developments. Two sectors – Ministry of Agriculture Water and Forestry (MAWF) and Ministry of Urban and Rural Development (MURD) were prioritized for the mainstreaming DRR and CCA into their development planning. The two ministries appointed a total of 20 focal point persons (9 from MURD and 11 from MAWF) from the different directorates and units to coordinate the mainstreaming process. In order to prepare the focal point persons to initiate and coordinate mainstreaming, a training workshop was organized for the team.

The Director of Disaster Risk Management, Mr. Japhet Iitenge, who was present at the workshop highlighted the background information for the workshop.  “The increasing frequency and severity of climate related disasters (droughts, floods, disease outbreaks and extremes of temperatures),  Impacts of climate change and disasters cut across all sectors resulting in economic losses, loss of lives and livelihoods, damage to infrastructure contributing to increased poverty among the most vulnerable.”

Mr. MacDonald Kadzatsa, FAO Consultant gave a presentation on the introduction to mainstreaming. The presentation covered the link between hazard, vulnerability and exposure and how climate change has exacerbated exposure and human vulnerability. There is strong evidence, both globally and in Namibia that there is an increase in both the observed frequency and intensity of weather- and climate-related hazards. These increasing trends, which are consistent with those anticipated as a result of global warming, have important implications for disaster risks.

Namibia has developed the National Strategy for Mainstreaming DRR and CCA into development planning. The presentation touched on the relevance and the rationale of the national strategy as a central tool guiding the updating and revision of the key development and sector strategic documents in an effort to mainstream DRR and CCA into development planning across sectors.

The main objectives of the workshop were:

1. To train identified staff on skills for mainstreaming DRR and CCA into sector legislation, policies, strategies, plans and budgets.
2. To establish a critical mass for DRR and CCA mainstreaming for the prioritized sectors.