ICLEI Africa engages the Namibia National Mayors Forum 2012
2012/09/09
From 4-6 September, 2012, Namibian Honourable Mayors, Councillors and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) from around the country convened at the Namibia National Mayors Forum in Windhoek. This is an annual forum that allows for local governments in Namibia to share experiences and agree on common resolutions to take forward for the year ahead.
ICLEI – Africa was invited to attend and spend half a morning presenting on ICLEI actions, projects and thematic areas of interest.
The gathering also served as an opportunity for ICLEI Africa to debrief the participants on the outcomes of the ICLEI World Congress 2012, Urban Nature 2012 and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) which took place in Brazil during June 2012. ICLEI’s Cities Biodiversity Centre, hosted by ICLEI Africa, presented on the latest trends, projects and tools related to climate change and biodiversity at the local level.
One of the participating local governments of the forum, Walvis Bay, was acknowledged for their integrated efforts towards addressing biodiversity (through ICLEI’s flagship Local Action for Biodiversity project) and climate change adapatation with support of the 'Five City Adaptation Network' which recently had its closing workshop. This ground-breaking project addressed, through a participatory process, knowledge, resource, capacity and networking gaps on the theme: 'strengthening urban governments in planning adaptation.' It aimed to develop local adaptation frameworks for managing the increased risk to African local governments and their communities due to climate change impact. The closing event of the project included an awards ceremony for the “Save your City – Adapt to Climate Change Competition”, awarded to Walvis Bay in Namibia.
The deliberations by the various mayors and CEOs at the Namibia National Mayors Forum in Windhoek indicated a definitive need for additional capacity strengthening and support to continue striving for increased sustainability at the local level. The four current ICLEI members in Namibia (Windhoek, Walvis Bay, Swakopmund and Mariental) showed great strength and leadership on sustainability – something ICLEI would like to see carried across to all local governments in the country.
