Namibia

Development cooperation between Iceland and Namibia will finish in the end of 2010. Icelandic Government has formally notified the Government of Namibia that they will not be able to honour their request for extending the General Agreement made by the two countries on development cooperation, which will expire in 2010. However, Iceland pledges to honour all commitments already made and will implement all contractual projects.

Since its commencement in 1990, the main objectives of the Namibian/Icelandic co-operation have been research in fisheries and the marine environment and training in the field of fisheries. ICEIDA's development co-operation in the social sector in Namibia has expanded significantly through the years and several new projects have been introduced.

 

From Iceida´s Annual Report 2009:

Introduction

Parliamentary and presidential elections were held in November. For this reason, the year was filled with political tension. These were the first elections since the founding of the Rally for Democracy and Progress. This is a split candidacy from the SWAPO movement which has ruled the country since it gained its independence. The election results came as no surprise. As before, the SWAPO movement holds a dominant position. The movement received 54 parliamentary seats out of 72, although it lost one seat. The Rally for Democracy and Progress is the largest opposition party with eight seats. Hifekepunye Pohamba was re-elected as president.

The economy declined somewhat. This was first and foremost caused by a decrease in international demand for diamonds and other metals. In addition, preliminary figures point to a decline in the tourist industry. However, there are various indications that the recession has reached its lowest point and that 2010 will see an upswing.

Towards the end of the year statistics were published showing unemployment in the country running at around 51%. This received some attention as official figures on unemployment have stated unemployment at around 36%. These figures caused some dismay and this has instigated renewed discussions on issues related to employment and education, and have raised questions on the results of government policies in these areas.

For the second year running floods in the northern part of the country caused extensive damage. It has been estimated that around 350,000 people lost their livelihoods entirely or to a large extent because of this. This equals almost 16% of the Namibian population. The government declared states of emergency in various areas.

 

Development Cooperation between ICEIDA and Namibia

A General Agreement on Forms and Procedures for Development Cooperation between Iceland and Namibia remains in force until the end of 2010. In early 2009, the Icelandic government came to the decision not to extend the agreement. Consequently, development cooperation between the nations will end on 31 December 2010. This marks a watershed in ICEIDA's history as activities in Namibia cover a period of nearly 20 years. For many years, Namibia was ICEIDA´s largest partner country. In June, ICEIDA's Director General visited Namibia to deliver the news to the Namibian authorities. He also explained that the difficult financial position of the Icelandic state was the principal reason for this decision. Representatives of the Namibian government sympathised with the decision. They expressed their gratitude to the Icelandic people for successful cooperation and wished them every success in working through their difficulties. The Director General met with the agency's staff in Namibia and assured the local staff that they would keep their jobs until the end of 2010.

The Country Director attended two country directors' meetings. The former meeting, which had been postponed from 2008, due to the financial difficulties, was held in Reykjavík.

The latter was held in Malawi in October. A number of short-term consultants worked for the country office during the year, both Icelandic and Namibian. However, compared to previous years, activities were diminished.

 

Support to the Education Sector

ICEIDA channels the largest part of its support in Namibia to education projects. The most prominent project in the country is focused on Deaf education and development of the Namibian Sign Language. Additionally, ICEIDA supports projects in the field of early childhood development (ECD), vocational training and adult learning.

During 2009, a number of important milestones were reached in the Deaf education project, and considerable progress was made towards reaching the project's objectives. 

 

•  A key aspect to ICEIDA's support to Deaf education in Namibia is the establishment of the Center for Communication and Deaf Studies (CCDS). ICEIDA has from the start seen the CCDS as a key institution to ensure the sustainability of project activities. Important progress was made in this regard during the year. The first 4 staff members were hired, including the head of the center and a deaf assistant teacher. The training of staff commenced under the supervision of the Communication Center for The Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SHH) in Iceland. A two-day workshop with the main stakeholders was held in June. The purpose was to identify the main tasks that the CCDS should undertake. A work plan was prepared which will guide the activities of the center. The workshop was facilitated by Valgerður Stefánsdóttir from SHH.
• In January, an adult literacy promoters training course for Deaf promoters began in cooperation with the Namibian Ministry of Education. The 12 participants in this training course were previously trained by Ms Júlía Hreinsdóttir, a Deaf Sign Language instructor from Iceland. After the training, the Deaf promoters began teaching Namibian Sign Language, as well as literacy and numeracy skills to Deaf adults in their respective regions. The salaries of the facilitators will be taken over by the Ministry once ICEIDA's involvement ends.
• A Deaf theatre group from Iceland, the DreamWorkshop, visited Namibia in February. The purpose was on the one hand to support Deaf cultural activities and on the other hand to raise awareness on Deaf issues and Sign Language. During three intensive weeks, eight Deaf and nine hearing actors were trained. The training culminated in ten performances at the National Theatre of Namibia. About 3,000 people attended the performances, of which about 2,700 were Namibian school children. For most of the children, this was the first time inside a theatre.
• Towards the end of June a Deaf theatre road show left Windhoek to set up 18 performances in ten towns in different parts of Namibia. The theatre school of the Namibian College of the Arts coordinated this effort which was funded by ICEIDA. It is estimated that at least 5.000 children saw the performances during the roadshow.
• ICEIDA continued its support to Cosmos High School, where six Deaf learners are attending grades 11 and 12. The support is for the services of interpreters.
• Through COSDEC, a vocational training center in Rundu, six Deaf adults received vocational training this year using interpreters funded by ICEIDA.
• With the support of ICEIDA, the Windhoek College of Education began offering Namibian Sign Language as a minor subject to their students. The purpose is to graduate new teachers with a good knowledge of NSL. They will therefore be well equipped to teach Deaf children. ICEIDA provides salaries for two years for a Lecturer in NSL and a Deaf NSL instructor. At the end of the year, 16 students passed the exams and transferred to the second year. A new batch of 16 students has registered for 2010.
• ICEIDA has developed good cooperation with the Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments of Namibia, better known as CLaSH. Numerous activities were undertaken during 2009, including training of teachers and in schools and kindergartens on inclusive education and Deaf children, as well as material development.
• ICEIDA provided funding for the building of three classrooms at the Usko Nghaamwa Special School in Eenhana and for two classrooms at Andreas Kandjimi Primary School in Rundu which has a special unit for Deaf children. Both buildings are now operational representing great improvement in their learning environment, as well as significant increase in the number of Deaf learners enrolled at the schools.
• In cooperation with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare (MGECW), 10 Deaf youth were trained as educarers for kindergartens. Subsequently, some of them will have an opportunity to get further training with CLaSH in their kindergarten for Deaf children.
• Teachers from the School for the Hearing Impaired in Khomasdal and Eluwa Special School in Ongwediva visited De la Bat School in South Africa. That school has over 100 years' tradition in Deaf education. The teachers were accompanied with the ICEIDA Sign Language Project Coordinator. The visit opened the eyes of the teachers for various new approaches that could be taken in Namibia.
• In May, an Icelandic Sign Language interpreter came to Namibia to continue training of interpreters. Training of a new group of interpreters began and two trainers were also trained who subsequently continued with the training of the new group during the second part of the year. All in all, 40 interpreters have received training with ICEIDA support.
• A team from ICEIDA visited the town of Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi region, some 1,250 kilometers from Windhoek, with the purpose of initiating project activities in the region. The visit yielded positive results and during the year two new teachers were trained to teach Deaf children at the Katima Combined School and support was given to the Ministry of Education in the region to conduct outreach activities to identify and register Deaf children.
• In November, 12 Deaf adults received training as Sign Language instructors. The potential instructors were from regions previously not represented in the Deaf adult literacy programme. Subsequently, they will also receive training from the Ministry of Education as adult literacy promoters, enabling them to start their own classes in their respective regions. 

Despite the cancellation of its proposed ECD project in Namibia, ICEIDA made efforts to channel some limited support to this important field in 2009. A number of printing projects supported in late year 2008 were finalized in the first half of the year, including a Study Guide for educarers. Importantly, 700 resource boxes, with educational materials, were distributed to educarers in all regions of Namibia, in cooperation with MGECW. ICEIDA was also able to co-fund with the MGECW training for educarers in two regions, a total of 40 participants graduated from the course in December. The Namibia College for Open Learning (NAMCOL) also admitted 20 caregivers from the Kunene region, for its new ECD certificate, but the initiation of the course was postponed until January 2010. Twenty staff members of the MGECW are also undertaking the Certificate for Education and Development at NAMCOL with a special ECD module. In addition, ICEIDA was able to fund a new ECD center for San children in the resettlement town of Tsintabis in northern Namibia.

The San are a marginalized and disadvantaged group in Namibian society. ICEIDA further supported educational projects with the San through their umbrella organization WIMSA. ICEIDA funded the post of an education adviser within the organization and supported a few education projects. Educational books for children in two San languages were published with support from ICEIDA and nine San youth started the Certificate in Education and Development at NAMCOL in February. They have all done well and WIMSA provides additional support and lectures for their studies with the support of ICEIDA.

In April, ICEIDA signed an agreement with the Community Skills Development Foundation (COSDEF). COSDEF is a registered trust that serves as the national umbrella body for a number of community skills training centers (COSDECs) around Namibia. The chairman of the COSDEF board of trustees is the right honourable Prime Minister of Namibia. The specific objective of this cooperation is to give support the COSDEF's vocational training centers in Swakopmund, Lüderitz, Gobabis and Opuwo with equipment and tools, and to provide training to unemployed and self-employed adults and out-of-school youth, thus reducing unemployment amongst these groups. This cooperation had been in the pipelines for considerable time.

Importantly, the agreement entails that COSDEF takes the running of the Benguela Community Center in Lüderitz and the Mahetago Community Center in Swakopmund and ensure their ongoing operations. For many years, ICEIDA has provided support to these two centers, and with the involvement of COSDEF a sustainable future has finally been secured for both. ICEIDA also cooperated with the COSDEC center in Rundu for vocational training for Deaf adults.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Education and the Department of Adult Education at University of Namibia, ICEIDA started support to an adult literacy project among the Ovahimba people in the Etanga area in northwestern Namibia. The project entails the production of a customized literacy primer for the Ovahimba, training of promoters and support to the promoters and until the end 2010, at which time the Ministry of Education will assume responsibility for the salaries of the promoters.

 

Support to Water and Sanitation

During the year, ten new water points were finalized in the northern Kunene region which is inhabited by the nomadic Ovahimba people. The project is carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry. This phase of the project brings the total number of operational water points to 26. In total, these water points yield around 250,000 litres per day, or over 90 million litres on an annual basis, in a very dry and remote area of Namibia.

New drilling contractors were hired for the job in 2009, following an open tender. The new tender led to considerable savings for ICEIDA. Installations of infrastructure and training of water point committees followed in the second part of the year. Overall, the water project is progressing well, the water points are providing sustainable yields of clean water, and the technical installations are solid. To guarantee sustainbale energy supply in these remote areas, the project makes use of solar powered pumps. Solar pumps further ensure that the sustainable yield of the water points is not exceeded. For the communities this means that running costs are minimal and environmental impact is further minimized compared to the diesel pumps frequently utilized in the past in Namibia.

In line with Namibian policy, the project implements community-based water management strategy, and training of community members is thus an integral part of the project. Each of the water points now has a trained and operational water point committee and a caretaker who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the water point. The communities have demonstrated a great deal of responsibility and care in maintaining their water points, and in many cases the shade provided by the 10,000 litre water tank serves as a meeting point for community members.

Concomitant to the water project, ICEIDA supports a holistic rangeland management (HRM) project which is run by Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) in northern Kunene region, the project area of ICEIDA's water project. IRDNC employs a project coordinator, funded by ICEIDA, to work in the area. IRDNC has prioritized a number of the new water points as being vulnerable to graze land degradation, and has started cooperation with the Ovahimba farmers in these areas to introduce HRM. At Rooidrom, a remote water point on the north-western edge of the Kunene region, the management system has been successfully implemented and positive results are being noticed in grazing areas. ICEIDA staff visited the project in March and again in December.

 

Support to the Fisheries Sector

ICEIDA supports a four-year training project overseen by the Benguela Current Commission. This Commission is a co-operation project of three countries, i.e. Angola, South Africa and Namibia. Its purpose is to develop an ecosystem approach in regard to control of the offshore waters of these countries. Three courses were held that year with the support of ICEIDA, one in each country. The aim of the project, which was launched in 2008, is to improve the training of researchers and scientists.

In October, the Country Director presented the Namibian Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources with hand-held computer equipment used to collect landing data. The equipment and the software developed will radically improve data collection of the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, thereby rendering fisheries management more efficient. With this handover the long and successful cooperation of ICEIDA and the Namibian Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources formally came to an end. The Permanent Secretary to the Ministry spoke highly of the cooperation and stated that the Icelanders would be sorely missed.

 

Cross Cutting Issues - Gender

As already stated in previous annual reports, gender equality forms part of ICEIDA's projects in Namibia. The ways in which the water project and the Sign Language project strengthen the position of women has already been discussed. As the operation in Namibia will soon come to an end there is nothing new to report. Nonetheless, the annual conference of women entrepreneurs was supported for the third time. The conference was a success and, as before, attended by around 300 women from all over the country.