financing efforts to adapt to climate change across the country. According to the bank’s chief executive Martin Inkumbi, the facility will provide affordable and customised financing solutions for projects which climate and environmentally friendly. DBN has previously financed several such initiatives, including water reclamation and storage in Walvis Bay and Neckartal Dam, as well other projects involved in renewable energy generation.
Accordingly, Inkumbi noted that having pioneered the financing of renewable energy, the bank is now setting out to minimise the effects of rising temperatures and increase energy and water efficiency in Namibia. Water management is crucial for the 2.5 million people inhabited in the small African nation, who have been suffering severe droughts for many years. Reports reveal that 83 per cent of the country’s rainwater evaporates, while only 1 per cent is available for groundwater recharge, and during the past decade there have been declarations of national state of emergencies in three different occasions.
According to DBN’s chief executive, the bank has financed several large scale water infrastructure projects, such as the Aqua Utilities, which semi-purifies water for industrial use in the port town of Walvis Bay. Nevertheless, prolonged droughts in Namibia mean that businesses are provided with a lucrative opportunity to invest in the technology and processes of water efficiency.
In the case of financing such projects, there has been an understandable resistance among financial institutions to fun projects with unfamiliar financing outcomes. In order to address this barrier, DBN has launched efforts to de-risk innovative projects through extensive due diligence and strong management of these risks. In this way, the state-owned development bank hopes to pioneer financing of climate change adaptation, with the aim of making Namibia more sustainable.
