Programme description

Title: Support to Gobabeb Training and Research Centre
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Africa, transnational (located in Namibia)
Lead executing agency: Environment and Land Management Sector der Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Overall term: 1999 to 2007

Context

Namibia is the driest country south of the Sahara with a harsh arid climate. The majority of the member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are as well confronted with a fragile ecology. More than 50 percent of the landmass of the SADC region is already negatively affected by the process of land degradation. Hence, human behaviour must adapt to a deteriorating environment. However, the actual forms of natural resource use are causing further losses in productivity and substance. Negative impacts are manifested in income losses, general deterioration of the living conditions in the SADC region and subsequently a worsening of the existing regional socio-economic disparities.

Objective

Improving sustainable natural resource management in the SADC region was aimed at reducing the process of resource degradation and stabilizing the fragile eco-systems in Southern Africa.

Approach

Although the economic and social effects of resource degradation are understood, the absence of adaptable, implementable and economically sustainable solutions prevented the development of appropriate measures for an improvement in sustainable resource management within the SADC region. As a contribution to problem solving, the SADC Secretariate entrusted the Gobabeb Research Station in the Namib Desert with the task of supporting the implementation of sustainable natural resource management through appropriate research, capacity building and information dissemination. For fulfilling this new mandate, the station was converted with German and Japanese development funds into a regional research and training centre. Construction was guided by alternative technologies which effected considerable energy savings. The range of support measures included beside others institutional capacity building, human resource development, promotion of partnerships, research, education, training, international networking and knowledge dissemination.

Results achieved so far

Gobabeb succeeded in integrating accumulated knowledge and expertise on sustainable resource management into a wide range of development policies and implementation strategies. The technologies developed and tested by the Centre are increasingly used for regional demonstration and training purposes. The work and measures of the project have helped Namibia to gain an unprecedented and leading role in the promotion and implementation of the concept of sustainable natural resource use in the SADC region. Hence, the significance of the German support is reflected by the developed innovative and replicable problem solutions for strengthening and promoting sustainable natural resource use. While Namibia achieved a broad implementation of the concepts developed by the Centre, the SADC region is lagging behind as efforts are concentrated for the time being on the design and formulation of appropriate and relevant policies and strategies. Despite generous donor support, activities in soliciting financial support and in strengthening institutional management will need to be continued at the Centre as financial independence has not yet been realized.

Further information

• Local website of this programme
  www.gobabeb.org