Namibia’s Nationwide Project Making Greening Waves

Namibia’s government backed citizen’s green coalition, Green Awareness Africa (GAWA), is making greening waves in the southern Africa nation, with the launch of a nationwide project that commits businesses and individuals alike to embrace sustainability.

GAWA is actually a group of citizens and companies who have taken a stand on getting green and now the concept is being applied in Namibian homes and offices around the country with significant success.

“The environment has become a priority issue for many countries. Billions are spent annually on reversing the damage we have done to our home”, said GAWA’s Gareth Amos.

“More policies and technological advances are unending, ever-astounding, and most certainly facilitators of rapid and exciting change. “

GAWA, which was established with the aim of leading the Green Movement in Namibia, will focus firstly on the business, corporate and government sectors.

It was officially launched in late 2008 by Stephan McGuire,  producer of the award winning film, The 11th Hour, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, together with the Namibian environment minister, Netumba Nandi-Ndaitwah. McGuire is also president of Coalition for a Sustainable Africa (CSAfrica).

According to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) – an internationally recognised method of quantifying and numerically benchmarking the environmental performance of a country’s policies – Namibia shines brightly, with a ranking of 88 world-wide and within the top 4 in Africa.

Said McGuire: “It is of great significance that GAWA’s activities enable the creation of ‘green-collar’ jobs and the establishment of a new ‘green economic sector’ within Namibia.”

The Business Recycling Project, which marks GAWA’s first initiative, will provide two types of recycling bins to Namibian companies – one for paper and another for plastic waste.

In addition, three corporate workshops have been conducted to raise awareness on how local businesses can incorporate environmentally friendly essentials into their marketing, brand and corporate responsibility strategies.

GAWA has already teamed up with international partners, CSAfrica and Tree Media, for an on the ground action campaign, and reality television show and documentary film for theatrical distribution, called GREEN TOWNS NAMIBIA bringing its own version of ‘11th Hour Action’ to Africa.

GREEN TOWNS NAMIBIA is the first of a series of programs in Africa combining sustainable action and media documentation.

Image credit: GAWA