In response to the Government of the Republic of Namibia (GRN) drought appeal in November 2003,
WFP approved a 6-months emergency operations targeting 111,000 orphans and vulnerable children
(96,940 OVC and 14,060 malnourished children through health clinics) in six of the most affected
northern regions of the country. Originally, the WFP support was scheduled to start in March 04 and end
by August 04, but due to delays in implementation, the operations started in July and will be terminated
by December 2004, although and extension till March 2005 seems likely. Of the 6 regions originally
selected, Caprivi, Kavango, Oshikoto and Ohangwena regions are served to date.
This report is expected to help WFP in taking a decision whether to continue its support to OVC, one of
Namibia’s most vulnerable population groups, starting with an assessment if food gaps are currently
being addressed appropriately by government and/or its partners.
This consultancy was requested in light of the new WFP Regional Appeal for Southern Africa, a socalled
“Protracted Relief and Recovery Operations” or PRRO that has recently been approved by the
WFP Executive Board and will start from early 2005 for a period of three years. The PRRO is a followup
to the Regional “Emergency Operation” (EMOP) for Southern Africa that has run from 2002-4 and is
specifically designed to tackle the so-called “triple threat” of food insecurity, weakened capacity for
governance and HIV/AIDS in the most affected countries (Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland,
Zambia and Zimbabwe), with chronic poverty as an internal driver of peoples’ vulnerability. The
consultancy should provide some well-informed recommendations if it is required to include a small
appeal for Namibia in the Regional PRRO.
Namibia is classified as a lower middle-income country with an estimated GDP of US$4.7 billion for
2003 and a Gross National Income of US$1,870 per capita. Unfortunately, there are a number of
reasons why this assumption would seem unjustified for a majority of the Namibians, which I list below:
– The majority of the people (more than 1 million), live in the North on communal land, are asset poor,
depend on subsistence farming and small stock rearing and are vulnerable to natural disasters such
as recurrent droughts, locusts, floods and animal diseases.
– Namibia has also one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world (22.3 per cent of all
Namibian adults were HIV-positive in 2001, with peaks of 43 per cent in the Caprivi region)
– Already in 2001, almost 30 per cent of the households had an under-15 child orphaned by 1 or two
parents in their midst.
– It is further projected that by 2021 there will be a cumulative death total of over one-half million
persons, leaving more than 200 000 AIDS orphans behind.
In response, the GRN has implemented grant-based support programmes to develop a national social
safety net in support the most afflicted population groups. These include the following measures:
- Pensions to persons over 60 years old and war veterans (MOHA)
- Special maintenance and disability grants (MOHSS)
- Maintenance and foster parent allowance for OVC and caregivers (MWACW)
- Cash for Work programmes (MAWRD)
Ongoing safety net programmes with food as a component are:
- School Feeding Programme (MBESC)
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- Food for work (MAWRD)
- Drought relief assistance (OPM-EMU)
- OVC supplementary feeding scheme (WFP/EMU)
The GRN has also drafted a number of new pieces of legislation to create a more conducive policy and
regulatory environment to tackle the problems of HIV/AIDS, poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition.
In total, the GRN is among the 8 countries in the world who spend the highest share of GDP on public
expenditure in education (almost 25 per cent) and is only second to South Africa in Southern Africa in
terms of per capita spending in the health sector.
This report supports the legitimacy of the claim that the GRN can request to be included under the new
WFP Regional PRRO, in helping to assure Namibians’ right-to-food.
The latest estimates for number of orphans in Namibia range from 31, 000 in 1999 to over 130,000
today. In other words in 10 years time 1 out of 3 kids will have lost one or both parents. These dramatic
figures reflect the enormous changes that have occurred and will further arise over time on individual
households, their extended families and communities as a whole. As the extended family remains the
primary caretaker of orphans, and families accept the additional “burden” of taking on board OVC to and
beyond the carrying capacity of a household, family structures are breaking down due to the impact of
HIV/AIDS on family life. Reliable figures about the numbers of defunct families are not available. Clearly,
all members of these families are vulnerable to food insecurity.
About half of the orphans are to be found in the four central north regions of Oshikati, Omusati,
Ohangwena and Oshikoto, while the rest reside in the north eastern regions of Kavango and Caprivi and
Windhoek. They further emphasize that they have found evidence that orphans are moved back to the
rural areas when parents die in urban environment. Therefore, the report expects that about 60 per cent
of the total orphan population will end up in these four northern regions.
The report clarifies how OVC access food, through the description of predominant livelihoods and
household characteristics in Namibia by region. In short, a large distinction can be made between the
central north and north-east of the country and the centre and south. The northern part is predominantly
communal land and hosts over two-thirds of the population largely dependent on rain-fed crop
production, raising cattle and small stock. Apart from the capital Windhoek, the centre and south of the
country constitute of mainly commercial export cattle and game farms, with a majority of the population
involved as farm workers.
Overall, the food security situation seems to have much improved since the 2003 drought, especially for
the large numbers of subsistence farmers in the northern areas, who were temporary food insecure
because of the drought. As a majority of OVC are cared for by their extended families, they are likely to
profit from this improved food security situation as anyone else. Due to a lack of statistical data, it is not
possible to calculate or estimate the percentage of households with OVC experiencing transitory versus
chronic food insecurity. The latter households would include children headed households and
grandmother headed households caring for a large number of (grand)children.