Windhoek
The Ministry of Land Reform invited consultants to come up with a mid-term review of the Programme for Community Land Development (PCLD).
A tender to this effect recently closed at the Tender Board of Namibia.
The purpose of this review, as stipulated in the tender document terms of reference, will be to assess the PCLD’s performance since its inception and also to provide recommendations guiding the ministry and its partners with regard to the remainder (and beyond) of the programme’s implementation stages.
The PCLD emanated from a 2011 bilateral agreement between the governments of Namibia and Germany with the main aim to support Namibia’s Communal Land Reform Programme.
Financial assistance from the European Union and two German-based donor agencies largely contributed to the implementation of the PCLD.
In accordance with the tender document terms of reference, the goals of this programme will be, inter alia, to ensure enhanced, sustainable land management practices; improve productivity and market-orientation through securing land rights; and infrastructure investments and access to advisory services in order to allow beneficiaries in communal areas to improve their livelihoods.
The government has since independence embarked on land reform as one of its most important programmes to be implemented in relevant stages over a continuous time frame.
Inheriting an unequal land distribution pattern from the apartheid regime whereby the majority percentage has been classified as freehold (commercial) land, government has till date redistributed 2.5 million hectares of freehold land to formerly disadvantaged Namibians under the national resettlement programme. This effort represents 50% of the target set for 2020.
With the final implementation stage of this land reform programme the main objectives reached will, amongst others, include more equitable distribution of and access to land, promotion of sustainable economic growth, reduction of income inequalities and lastly, the reduction of poverty.
The estimated time frame to finalize this mid-term review will be three months, starting during September 2016.