Statement by hon. Paul Smit
Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development of the Republic of Namibia at the Twenty-seventh IFAD Governing Council Session Rome, February 18-19, 2004

Mr. Chairman,
Mr. President,
Distinguished Governors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

FAO reports show that 840 million people across the world will today go to bed without food. These poor people have neither clue nor hope of whether they will have something to eat tomorrow, the days, weeks, months and years after. Most of these people find themselves in the rural areas of developing countries, such as Namibia. These same people live on less than USD 1 per day and usually in conditions of abject poverty and squalor. Most worrisome is the fact that instead of declining the number of people in this category is rapidly increasing.

This situation, Mr. Chairman pauses a great challenge to all of us to come up with innovative ways of up-lifting these sectors of our society from this hopeless situation. Although most countries represented here have diverse economic bases and are at varying stages of development, the challenges our economies face or may have faced have much in common. Therefore, there is an urgent need for concerted efforts to reverse this shameful situation.

Namibia with a per capita income of USD 2 100 is regarded as a middle- income country. However, this income figure is deceptive, as it masks the wide disparity in the levels of incomes among the country’s population, since the country (with a gini coefficient of 0.7) has one of the most un-egalitarian societies. Furthermore, Namibia has an unemployment rate that is rapidly skyrocketing to well above 34 % of the economically active population. Hence, one of the greatest development challenges Namibia faces during the post independence era is how to redress this glaring inequality among its population.

Coupled with that is the prevalent incidence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic that pauses one of the greatest threats to Namibia’s rural development efforts. Since 1986 when the first case was reported, the infection rate has been expanding at an alarming rate. With an HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of one in every five persons among adults, a majority of whom are the sources of labor, the country’s rural development efforts have been and will continue to be severely threatened. The pandemic is eroding the prospect for human development and increased productivity. The impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture, particularly the rural poor has been extremely severe. They are hit the hardest. Because of reduced productivity (owing to poor health), diversion of labor and resource (mainly livestock) to caring for the sick and eventually paying for funeral services, presently poverty in rural areas is worse than some 10 years ago. This is worsened by the expected decline in life expectancy from 57 years in mid-1990s to about 40 in the decade to come

Mr. Chairman,

Namibia’s rural development efforts are further curtailed by the lack capacity in terms of adequately skilled and technically competent practitioners to implement the country’s development programmes. This lack of capacity severely hampers the pace with which the poverty gap could be narrowed, and therefore needs to be overcome as matter of urgency.

Another major challenge hampering progress in rural development in many developing countries, including Namibia, is the absence of a vision of where we would like to be at a specified reference time in the future. Wisdom has it that unless one knows where one is going one may be embarking on a lost journey. It is imperative that every nation, most importantly, developing countries must have a vision. Such a vision must not be a vision of a particular government at a certain point in time, but a vision of the people, by the people and for the people of the country at large.

Recently, Namibia developed a vision of its own known as Vision 2030. Vision 2030 is an expression of the will and aspirations of the Namibian people. It emanates from an introspective assessment of where the Namibian nation has come from where it is at present and where it would like to be by 2030. Vision 2030 is a result of a long consultative process between government, the private sector, non- governmental organizations, civil society and the farming communities. It can be seen as the road map that will lead the people and the country to prosperity by 2030. It defines the role of all stakeholders in the economic development of the country at various points in time over the span of the Vision. To achieve this vision, it is estimated that Agriculture will have to contribute approximately 25 % to the overall growth of the national economy.

Tackling rural poverty in Namibia has two dimensions. One aspect deals with creating access to economic resources, which essentially determines the level of incomes and hence access to food, while the other dimension deals with creating access to social services (health, education and water supply). Since gaining independence 13 years ago, Namibia has recorded remarkable strides in the social sector. Close to 80% of school-going age children have been enrolled in schools, while 85% of the population now has access to potable, clean and safe water. Efforts are underway towards building health facilities at constituency level. These services are, at present delivered by the government at heavily subsidized costs. However, unless the country attains a higher level of economic progress such that a bulk of the costs of providing these services is borne by the beneficiaries these efforts may become unsustainable.

Mr. Chairman, creating access to natural resources, in particular land and water is another challenge Namibia is currently facing. Access to resources, particularly land, is crucial not only to reduce rural poverty, but most importantly to bring about increased agricultural production. Namibia with 850 000 km sq land area, but having only 1.8 million people has vast tracts of land which can serve as an important source of livelihood to a great majority of the landless. Equitable redistribution of land is a very high priority of the Namibian Government. To this end land redistribution and resettlement program has been designed. This program consists of four major components, namely:

• An affirmative action loan scheme aimed at giving well –off communal farmers access to subsidized loans from the Agricultural Bank of Namibia, so that they can buy commercial farms and relieve the pressure on degraded communal land;
• A resettlement scheme, whereby Government allocates N$ 50 million per annum for the purchasing of land from commercial farmers in order to resettle the landless; and for the development of under-utilized land in some communal areas for the same purposes;
• The reform of the land tenure system from communal to private title deeds and long-term leasehold systems; and
• Capacity building scheme to empower resettled farmers with knowledge and skills to use the acquired land productively.

However, the investment resources required for purchasing and developing the land, rehabilitating the physical infrastructures, and enhancing the capacity of the resettled landless to use the land productively, far outstrips government’s capacity of allocating the resources required. To succeed, Namibia would need international support for this noble program.

Mr. Chairman, the other major area of focus in the country’s rural development effort is the promotion of natural resource conservation-based development. The country’s development policy accords conservation of the environment a central role in developing the rural sector. To this end, Government designed a two-pronged sustainable natural resource-based development strategy based on h both the sustainable natural resource based livestock production, and the promotion of eco-tourism through community-based conservancies.

Through a conservancy-based poverty reduction strategy, conservancies are being established where wild life and renewable living resources are abundantly available as an alternative source of livelihoods for the rural population, while protecting the fragile eco-systems and the bio-diversity. Over the past nine years, Government has established some 21 community-based conservancies. This strategy enables preservation of the natural habitat. It allows people and wild life to live in harmony. It serves as a vital source of employment (income generation) by promoting eco- tourism. It is important to note here that tourism is one of major sources of foreign exchange earner of Namibia’s economy.

Mr. Chairman, in many developing countries, including Namibia, a great majority of our rural societies depend on agriculture as their primary source of livelihoods. Consequently, progress in the field of agriculture has the potential to improve the standard of living for the majority of these people.

However, progress in this crucial area is being hampered by lack of requisite capita caused by the limited revenue source base and the lack of access to affordable credit. Funds mobilized from international financial institutions by developing countries, especially those not eligible for soft loans, like Namibia tend to be costly and therefore unaffordable in the long-term due to the prohibitive cost of repayment attached to such loan funds. This is because for every Euro or US Dollar borrowed, governments have to purchase the Euro/USD at unfavorable exchange rates to service debts and repay the loans taken out in international currencies.

The challenge to the lending institutions and the borrowers alike is to explore the possibility of having loans available in local or regionalcurrencies that are internationally traded and to which developing countries have relatively easier access so as to greatly reduce the debt burden caused by borrowing for agricultural and rural development which have the potential of improving the livelihoods of the rural population.

Mr. Chairman, all efforts mentioned above will be in vain if at the end of the day the rural poor do not get tangible benefits due to the current global trade imbalances. The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture signed in April, 1994 in Marrakesh, Morocco, was a major achievement because it brought agriculture under multilateral trade rules for the first time. However, the agreement has failed those of us who thought it would stimulate economic development of our countries by significantly improving the market access of our agricultural products onto the world market. Instead of the much-anticipated improvement in market access, the agreement perpetuated trade distortions at our expense. To this end, we call for renewed political will from all partners in the trade negotiations to bring the negotiations stalled since Cancun back on track, and to at the same time ensure that the agreement to be established under the Doha Round negotiations will significantly reduce the current distortions in every commodity sector, and that the resultant reforms are meaningful and real. To maintain the status quo will raise more doubts about the value of multilateral trade reforms and even encourage member states to resort the law of the jungle where the stronger survives at the expense of the weaker.

Thank you.