Nam, Germany sign development cooperation agreements

Jemima Beukes
Namibia and Germany have signed agreements valued at €19 million (N$386 million) covering three new programmes focusing on climate-resilient water supply, climate-resilient groundwater management in northern Namibia, and urban development in Lüderitz and Aus in the //Kharas region.
This was announced in a joint statement issued by the National Planning Commission (NPC) and the German Embassy in Namibia last week, in which both sides agreed and committed to speed up the implementation of the project.
The commitments for the signed agreements were made during Government Negotiations on Development Cooperation between Namibia and Germany in June 2023.
“Employment creation, poverty reduction and reducing inequality is a central component of the relations between Namibia and Germany. Germany’s official development assistance since Namibia’s independence until 2023 amounts to around 1.6 billion euros (roughly N$32 billion. In per-capita terms, Namibia is thus the largest recipient of German development cooperation in Africa.”
The German government assured Namibia that it would align its future development cooperation with the ideas and goals formulated in Namibia’s development strategies such as the National Development Plans (NDPs).
This, the statement highlighted, would be launched in April 2025 and would incorporate the Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP) as well as the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
“Before the 2024 Inter-governmental consultations, [we]conducted a field trip to monitor project progress and development impact in the area of the Rural Development, bush control and biomass utilization; Natural Resource Management, the Namibian Parks, Environmental and Climate Change - the Benguela Marine Spatial Planning, Renewable Energy under the Energy H2 Partnership Namibia/Germany (HyIron) as well as completed projects under the former Namibian-German Special Initiative Program which was finalised in 2017. The next bilateral negotiations on Development Cooperation are planned for September 2025 in Lüderitz, //Karas Region.” [email protected]