N$890 million for 580 000 drought-hit Namibians

Government, through the Office of the Prime Minister, will allocate N$892.4 million for a drought relief programme to be rolled out in rural areas across all 14 regions between 1 October and June 2024.

The programme aims to assist 579 000 people.

Additionally, a livestock support programme will be executed from 1 October to 31 March 2024.

I-Ben Nashandi, executive director at the prime minister's office, said support for affected households will be based on household size. Beneficiaries will receive maize meal, cooking oil and any available protein like meat or fish. No toiletries or other basic needs will be included.

Hungry Namibians

According to Nashandi, close to 580 000 people in Namibia are estimated to be facing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above) between July and September. This situation requires urgent humanitarian assistance.

"During the current period, most households do not have any food stocks, with most having indicated stocks lasting less than one month, and those who had stocks lasting between one and three months have already depleted their food stocks. As a result, households have already experienced difficulties in purchasing food due to a lack of income and high unemployment rates."

He added: "It is projected that during the period October 2023 to March 2024, the number of people expected to experience food insecurity would further rise to 695 000 people (26% of the population)."

Distribution

A 2023–24 Vulnerability Assessment Analysis was conducted between May and July this year and covered both urban and rural areas in all 14 regions.

Nashandi revealed that the support programmes will consist of food relief distribution, water provision and livestock support such as marketing incentives, subsidies on the lease of grazing, subsidies on transport to grazing areas, and subsidies on fodder purchased.

"As per the usual procedure, regional councils would oversee and facilitate the identification and registration of beneficiaries at the village level. This should be done through transparent platforms, preferably community meetings coordinated by community leaders, to identify and register households that are in dire need of this assistance," he explained.

"The Office of the Prime Minister will communicate all the administrative procedures to be followed by regions during the rollout of the drought relief programme on food distribution.”

Other programmes

In April, the gender equality and poverty eradication ministry noted in its budget motivation that the food bank initiative would transition and become the Conditional Basic Income Grant (CBIG), which will disburse N$600 per beneficiary.

For this financial year (2022-2023), the ministry said about 8 047 households (37 053 individuals) received the grant across all fourteen regions as part of the first phase of its implementation.

The ministry received just over N$6 billion during the budget allocations in April. The ministry's spokesperson, Lukas Haufiku, told Namibian Sun at the time that the transition would make it easier for beneficiaries to use the grant for anything, including transport and toiletries.

"The current project rollout plan will cover the 2024–2025 financial years. Currently, the ministry is analysing and working on the criteria for beneficiaries and is still in the development phase with that. The ministry will communicate the outcomes with the nation once it's been completed," Haufiku said.

Priorities

Nashandi reiterated that only households that earn zero and up to N$2 600 will qualify for the support programme.

"There are people who have no access to food, and the people whose income is above a defined threshold of N$2 600, they at least have an income to buy food, so let's target the rest who are not able," he said.