Namibia and Germany signed a N$386.5 million climate project funding agreement for water supply, groundwater management, and urban development in Lüderitz and Aus.
The agreement signed by the Director General of the National Planning Commission, Obeth Kandjoze and Andreas Götze, Deputy Head of Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany, also includes financial cooperation and technical cooperation between the two countries.
“The commitments for the signed agreements were made during Government Negotiations on Development Cooperation between Namibia and Germany in June 2023. In the scope of these negotiations, strategies and priorities for the future cooperation are discussed and agreed upon,” the German embassy said.
It added that “the Namibia – German cooperation has yielded positive development results and has contributed to Namibia’s quest of achieving its national aspirations such as employment creation, poverty reduction and reducing inequality. 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 approximately N$32 billion (€1.6 billion). In per-capita terms, Namibia is thus the largest recipient of German development cooperation in Africa.
Following Government negotiations in June 2023, this year’s bilateral consultations took place from 24 to 26 April 2024 at Swakopmund.
At the consultations, Germany assured to align its future development cooperation with the ideas and goals formulated in Namibia’s development strategies such as the National Development Plans (NDPs), with the priorities of the NDP6 to be launched in April 2025 and the Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP) as well as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
“Prior to the 2024 inter-governmental consultations, the two parties conducted a field trip to monitor project progress and development impact in the area of Rural Development (bush control and biomass utilisation); Natural Resource Management (Nam Parks); Environmental and Climate Change (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, //KharasRegion.
