The much-anticipated African Drought Conference with the theme ‘Enhancing resilience to drought events on the African Continent’, scheduled for May 11 to 15 in Windhoek, has been postponed until further notice.
Spokesperson for the planned event to be hosted by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Yolanda Motinga, yesterday confirmed to New Era that the conference has been postponed until further notice, saying a new announcement can hopefully be expected soon.
She was unable to provide reasons for the postponement but expressed the need for the conference, which will underline the fact that Africa is highly vulnerable to drought with around one-third of the population living in drought-prone areas and 97 percent of agriculture being rain-fed.
Drought has devastating economic, environment and social impacts in terms of loss of human life, food insecurity, reduced agricultural productivity and degradation of natural resources.
Namibia is the driest country south of the Sahara and is currently suffering the effects of another drought.