Mr Chairman
My delegation to this session of the Commission on Sustainable
Development wishes to congratulate you and the other members of the
Bureau for the way in which you have been directing our proceedings.
We have requested the floor to contribute to the debate on ?Turning
Commitments into Action, Working together in Partnership?.
Both in Stockholm, Rio, Johannesburg and other fora, we as governments
and countries, members of the United Nations have made various
commitments to drive forward the cause for sustainable development in the
context of our common but differentiated responsibilities.
Among others, we did commit ourselves to eradicate poverty, changing the
unsustainable patterns of consumption and production and to protect and
manage the natural resource base for economic and social development as
well as for the protection of the environment.
At the same time, we have committed ourselves to working together to help
one another gain access to financial resources, benefit from the opening of
markets, ensure capacity building, use modern technology to bring about
development and make sure that there is technology transfer, human
resource development, education and training to banish underdevelopment
for ever and consign poverty to the archives.
We have also committed ourselves to making sure that the available
resources are used to the benefit of humanity.
Today, we are meeting here not only to review what we have achieved so
far, but also to map out the way forward in the areas of energy for
sustainable development, industrial development, air pollution/atmosphere
and climate change.
Mr Chairman
With regard to energy for sustainable development, Namibia has been
pursuing a mixed sustainable energy policy based on hydropower, fossil
fuels, including the possibility of utilizing nuclear energy for the generation
of electricity, natural gas and renewable energy sources, such as wind and
solar energy.
Furthermore, we are active members of the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) sub-regional power pool where by we both import and
at times export power to other members of the power pool.
However, currently we are faced with the crucial shortage of electricity
supply, as increasing demand in our sub-region has not been matched with
corresponding development of and investment in energy supply sources.
This is negatively affecting our rural electrification programme, which the
Government embarked upon right at independence in 1990.
Furthermore, our attempts at diversifying energy sources have not been
successful due to various factors. Firstly, the Government?s efforts to
generate hydropower on the Kunene River has been met with resistance
from both the environmental community and potential financial supporters,
who invoke environmental concerns that may result from such developments
despite studies that indicate that the projects are both economically viable
and environmentally sound.
On the other hand, both solar and wind energy sources have proved to be
costly, especially given our status as a lower middle-income country with no
qualification for significant financial grants and/or concessional loans.
With regard to air pollution, I wish to highlight the following:
As a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC),
Namibia faced out the use of leaded petrol at the end of 2005. My
Government has also banned the importation of second hand vehicles from a
number of countries, as they are believed not to meet the minimum
emissions of carbon dioxide. To this one should also add my Government?s
programme of subsidies to businesses that attempt to switch to more
environmentally friendly practices, such as replacing cooling systems that
emit greenhouse gases with more environmentally friendly ones.
Of course our democracy continues to be vibrant while our policies to
combat both desertification and land degradation have scored some
successes, as communities continue to adapt to climate changes. As an
example, more and more communities are now switching from unsustainable
agricultural activities towards community based conservancies and/or
tourism. This will hopefully make the land that could otherwise have
become useless due to persistent droughts and desertification, again
usefulness.
Mr Chairman,
When it comes to working in partnership, it sadness me to say that the global
partnership for development is failing us as developing countries in general
and as middle income developing countries in particular.
Firstly, our classification as a lower middle-income country has made our
access to financial resources very much limited. This limitation has
negatively affected our rural electrification programmes and hence our
poverty reduction and industrialization processes.
Secondly, our country, like the rest of Africa, continues to suffer from the
effects of climate change. Namibia is among the driest countries in the
world and this fact alone has made us prone to recurrent bouts of drought.
Indeed, it is rare in Namibia to experience two consecutive good rain
seasons.
The continuation of this situation may, if not properly addressed, likely lead
to instability given that about sixty per cent of our population live in rural
areas and depend on rain-fed subsistence farming. Even conservancies and
community-based tourism are unimaginable without the availability of
sufficient water.
Furthermore, Namibia is sandwiched between two deserts, which make the
combating of desertification and land degradation a matter of life and death.
Desertification and insufficient rain as a result of global warming is
threatening the very livelihoods of our people as the desert continues to
claim more and more of the agricultural and range land and rendering it
inhabitable. Continued reckless emissions of greenhouse gases and
inadequate financial and technical support to our efforts to adapt to and
mitigate the effects of climate change will therefore only exacerbate this
already worse situation.
Namibia is also both a coastal and mountainous country, which is further
making our lives more precarious. Rising seas as a result of climate change
culminates in flooding of coastal areas. It is indeed hard to contemplate a
situation were heavy rains to fall in our coastal areas because the loose
desert sands on which coastal towns are built will not stand the force of
floodwaters.
Insufficient rain has also led to water scarcity in some parts of the country
while other parts experience floods annually due to their proximity to
perennial rivers that we share with a number of our neighbours. These
factors have also made our ecosystem very fragile and the country
vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Mr Chairman
It is frightening that we are faced with these challenges at a time when aid
flows to our country have continued to decline steadily from US$110 per
capita immediately after our independence in 1990 to US$ 60 per capita in
2005. In addition, the number of bilateral donors active in Namibia also
declined from 22 in the 1990s to 17 in 2006. There are also indications that
three of these might be leaving the country next year (2008).
Another simptom of climate change that is becoming evident in Namibia is
the spread of malaria to areas hitherto considered free of the disease.
Historically, this disease was prevalent in the northern and northeastern parts
of the country only because the central and southern parts had colder
temperatures. However, with the change in temperatures since a few years
ago, malaria-carrying mosquitoes are found nearly everywhere in the
country spreading the disease. Meanwhile, our fight against malaria is being
hindered by the high costs of medicines while our own efforts to produce
cheaper generics have been met with resistance as multinational
pharmaceutical companies invoke their ownership of intellectual property.
In conclusion, Mr Chairman I wish to appeal to the international community,
and especially to our developed partners to fulfill their commitments to
assisting us both financially and technically to achieve sustainable
development. They should also reduce the levels of greenhouse gasses
emissions.
I hope that the document we will adopt at the end of this session of the
Commission on Sustainable Development will encourage us all to do more
to further sustainable development.
I thank you.
