Managing the liquid of life in a desert land: British assistance to Namibia

Namibian guides like to pose the following question to first time visitors here: what do you do if you fall into a river in Namibia? Answer: stand up and dust yourself down. But sadly water, or more normally the lack of it, is not always a laughing matter here.

Namibia is the most arid country south of the Sahara. It has no permanent rivers within its borders. There are sizeable rivers running along the boundaries with its southern and northern neighbours (the Orange, Kunene and Zambezi Rivers) but, inside the country, river beds are dry for most of the year. Low annual rainfall (as little as 50mm in the western coastal zone and Namib Desert) makes rural areas extremely vulnerable to drought and farming difficult. This has a major impact on national wellbeing in a country where the majority of the population is reliant on subsistence farming.To complicate matters further, Namibia suffered the worst flooding in decades in its north west and eastern regions this year. The government declared a national emergency in March. Large areas of standing water were still visible in fields outside urban areas when I went on my recent familiarisation visit to the north.In response to these ongoing problems and the need to address local river basin management more effectively, the British government has provided £7m (N$70m) for a series of Regional Transboundary Water Management programmes, including the Kunene Transboundary Water Supply Project. The programmes fall under UK Aid:DFID’s  Southern Africa Regional Plan and aim to improve management of international water resources by SADC  and help control floods, mitigate droughts and enable better use of water for agriculture, industry and power generation. The Kunene project is being implemented by German development agency GIZ. It covers resource development and planning, infrastructure development, water governance and capacity building.

I was fortunate enough to be able to meet with the project managers, SADC Secretariat water officials, Under Secretary for Water Affairs and Chair of Namibian water parastatal Namwater, as well as senior counterparts from Angola, during my recent trip to the north. The Kunene project feeds into the Southern African Development Community’s Regional Strategic Action Plan on Integrated Water Resources Development and Management, which look beyond borders to focus on both local and regional needs.

The Kunene River rises in Angola before travelling south into Namibia to service the country’s main population centration in the northern states. More than 50% of the country’s 2.1m population live in the densely populated northern belt adjacent to Angola.

The whole area was under water at the start of the year when local people were forced to live on small islands until help came up from the south. Namwater Chair Abraham Nehemia told me the floods had also heightened the risk of malaria and cholera in the area too.

The Kunene River Basin Project will help to tackle such problems and secure more reliable fresh water supplies for local people. It aims to promote sustainable water usage across domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors. Flood management will be a key element.

During my visit, I was taken to see the open

Mahenene Calueque Canal bringing water south across the border from Angola to a water treatment plant at Oshakati. I could see clearly how silted up the vital open water channel was becoming and how exposed it was to contamination. We saw groups of cattle drinking from it and settlements running adjacent to it. Last year, Namwater’s General Manager: Engineering Dr Kuiri Tjpangandjara told me Namwater had to spend N$7m (£700,000) on repair work alone to sort out broken canals and remove silt and sand.

After treatment in Oshakati, the water is routed north across the border again to supply settlements in the south of Angola. This benefits both countries’ rural communities in a truly regional arrangement dating back to the 1920s.

The Kunene River Basin Project plans to increase the availability of potable water to both communities and provide better economic management of the water supply system. The project is currently looking at the feasibility of replacing the 137km of open canals with a pipeline. This will contribute to the security of this vital water supply system and make it less vulnerable to weather and flow conditions of the river.

Mr Obonetsi Masedi, Water & Sanitation Expert, SADC Secretariat, told me that the Kunene Transboundary River Basin project is being looked to as a lesson for planning further transboundary projects elsewhere in the region. It directly contributes to the regional organisation’s main goal of promoting regional integration and poverty alleviation and transforming lives in a sustainable manner.

It was great to see UK tax payers’ money being used to deliver such tangible benefits to such a hard hit region. I feel strongly that it is important for both British nationals and Namibians to learn more about the practical benefits and outcomes of British development assistance on the ground here.

I plan to visit all the UK-funded development initiatives in the coming months – which cover food security, climate change, health education, regional trade facilitation and financial sector strengthening.

In the meantime, for a list of UK development assistance in Namibia take a look at our recently updated page on the UKinNamibia website here

People are often surprised by the range and size of continued UK development assistance here. We may not still have a bilateral aid programme (now that Namibia is a middle income country) but we remain committed to assisting the country and region through UK Aid: DFID’s Southern Africa Regional Development Plan. You may be surprised to see how extensive this is and how much Namibia benefits from a range of its programmes.

Do let me know if you (Namibians and Brits alike) have any questions on UK’s assistance to Namibia. I will do my best to answer them – even if it needs the assistance of colleagues from DFID Southern Africa in Pretoria!