Windhoek — Climate shocks and emergencies are no longer distant concerns - they are now a reality. The rains in Namibia might provide a brief respite, but the underlying crisis remains.
The effects of climate change are exacerbating droughts and threatening livelihoods, and this persistent challenge requires nothing short of a "Marshall Plan" (a US program that provided economic aid to Western Europe after World War II) for drought resilience, not just in Namibia but throughout Southern Africa.
Experts attribute the extreme dry spell to the El Nino weather phenomenon, which has been particularly severe this year. Several months ago Namibia, as well as Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, declared a state of emergency due to the persistent drought. Across Southern Africa, one of the worst droughts in living memory has left millions hungry. The UN World Food Programme ( WFP ), reports that nearly 7 million people are starving there.
Namibia has the potential to create a more sustainable and effective response to climate shocks and food insecurity by addressing these disparities and addressing the broader ecosystem. In the face of the climate crisis, droughts are on the rise, and as livelihoods in the region are threatened, WFP becomes increasingly important.
Tiwonge Machiwenyika, the WFP Country Director and Officer in Charge for Namibia said that humans are known for their resilience and ability to adapt to the changing environment and ecosystems.
"One of the things that I think is critical going forward is to change the way we look at our food systems," Machiwenyika said. "If we look at the food system space, from production to fork, there are some inefficiencies in there that if we address some of those inefficiencies, they can contribute towards minimizing the impacts of these big climate events that we are going to see going forward.
"If 70% of Namibians rely on agriculture as a livelihood option, should we continue undertaking our agriculture the way we do now? Or do we need to re-brand it or re-look at how we do that whole process in terms of at least the primary production side?"
He said: "Namibia is the second most unequal country from an economic perspective, in at least sub-Saharan Africa. How do we look at bridging that inequality so that there is equitable distribution of the public resources as well as opportunities across the board so that we balance out the scale in terms of being able to produce for yourself but also being able to procure the food security for yourself as a household?"
"There are strides we can make in that area, looking at issues like economic empowerment, gender equality, and women's empowerment," said Machiwenyika.
"It's looking at issues of equitable access to public services, be it education across the board from primary to tertiary education," he said. "We are looking at issues around the first 1,000 days of children to ensure that they get adequate support during that window, including issues around nutrition so that they can grow and achieve their human potential."
"There are a lot of activities at play at the moment. And also there is a lot of optimism, at least from my side, that there are solutions that we can build to address these issues. If you look at the youth at the moment, there is a lot of traction in trying to build and come up with solutions. If it's from an agribusiness point of view, it's from an entrepreneurial point of view, there's a lot of traction in that space," said Machiwenyika.
"So there is optimism going forward, but that optimism has to be mirrored by the right action at the right time for the right people to achieve the right outcomes," he said.
Namibia's drought crisis has prompted the government to allocate funds for relief efforts.
An estimated N$825 million is allocated to drought-stricken communities through the government's drought-relief programme. Namibia and other southern African countries need international support for this growing crisis.
The government's drought relief programme addresses several needs, not just food. As livestock is a key focus in Namibia, the government provides water and fodder to smallholder farmers to "prevent them from losing or selling off all their assets, so they have a foundation to recover from", he said.
"When you start looking at these different sectors, you're looking at providing food assistance to 1.2 million people to cover their basic food needs within this period."
Machiwenyika said that Namibia's confronting issues of malnutrition have been getting worse as the lean season progresses. "For those who have followed the media in the last two months, there have been reports about malnutrition-related mortality rates, especially for children under five," he said.
"Once you consider that, the resources required for that grow exponentially as you progress. That being said, I believe we should acknowledge on this platform that the government has done a great deal to provide these resources. Namibia is probably one of the countries where the government has invested a lot of public funds to address these food-related issues."
"Following the emergency declaration by the President, we have seen significant international partners stepping in to assist Namibia," said Machiwenyika. "For instance, the governments of Japan, the Republic of South Korea, and the United States, alongside the United Nations' Central Emergency Relief Fund, have all contributed to closing the gap in the drought relief response programme developed by the government."
"There's a lot of international support, local support, and the private sector has come on board as well," he said. "We are working with a number of public sector foundations in the country that support the government and other organizations like the United Nations and World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization to meet the country's needs."
Machiwenyika attended an event in Omaheke and spoke with the governor, who said private individuals have also stepped up to assist. "There are farmers in Omaheke providing horticultural commodities like vegetables for the soup kitchens that the region is implementing," he said. "We are receiving a lot of support from all sides, including the public, private, and international organizations, in order to weather this storm."
"For me, what matters is what happens after this phase," he said. "How do we build resilience so that we can absorb this kind of impact going forward?
"And to that effect, the government is working with the United Nations to develop a resilience strategy to try and build the capacity and capabilities to address these issues moving forward.
Tech-Powered Voucher Program
Machiwenyika said when WFP When we implement programs, especially when you look at the activities in response to this, to, let's say, the drought emergency requiring 1.2 million people to be supported, we look at all viable options in delivering those programs.
"In terms of what WFP does, we utilize in-kind food distributions where the government procures food in bulk and delivers it directly to the communities," said Machiwenyika. "However, we also leverage markets and the private sector. In Namibia, where the markets and supply chains are functional, and the infrastructure supports market activities, we can integrate market-based approaches into our programs."
"This presents an opportunity for extend using our assistance to also contribute towards the economic activity of these areas that we are working in, so that we are not just only bringing the commodities there, but we are also working with those enterprises in those areas to be part and parcel of the response. That would be one part," he said.
Machiwenyika said: "The second part of our approach is leveraging the work we do, whether it's through digitalization, using electronic vouchers, or commodity vouchers. We aim to implement these programs at scale and use that platform to support the government's social protection initiatives, such as the conditional basic income grant and ongoing food distributions. The idea is to integrate the private sector into the response, making it a collaborative effort. It's important to note that there's no one-size-fits-all solution - context is very important.
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"We have to do a lot of analysis, a lot of understanding of how the market is working within those particular areas and whether our program will then be fit for purpose for those particular areas and how do we scale up those activities to also bring public programs to either uptake some of those activities using the platforms that we would have invested in during this kind of responses. So it's a two-way street. It's a double-edged sword," he said. "On one side, there are opportunities that come up with this kind of event. On the other side is the impact the events have on communities and households."
Turning to Wildlife for Survival
In Namibia and Zimbabwe, authorities kill wildlife, including elephants, to provide meat for hungry people. The Namibian government controversially decided to cull 723 wild animals, including 83 elephants, and to distribute the meat to people struggling to survive due to a severe drought.
Namibia's Ministry of the Environment said about half of Namibia's population - 1.4 million people - are acutely threatened by food and water shortages. The ministry officials said the culling would be done by "professional hunters and safari outfitters" in "national parks and communal areas with sustainable game numbers," where the population is exceeding water and grazing resources.
Zimbabwe plans to kill 200 elephants so that their meat can be distributed to communities in need. There is a possibility that Botswana will soon decide to join the fray as former President Mokgweetsi Masisi said : "If our people are starving, we have a duty to feed them... In that respect, I'm sorry: we have no choice but to feed our people with some, if not all, of these elephants."
However, some critics argue that killing hundreds of elephants hide a deeper motive for profiting from ivory sales. It is alleged that governments are conflating elephant management, food insecurity, and human-wildlife conflict to justify actions largely driven by financial gain.
