Marythar Kambinda
KATIMA MULILO – The Ministry of Environment and Tourism is implementing the Namibia Integrated Landscape Approach for Enhancing Livelihoods and Environmental Governance to Eradicate Poverty project in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme with financial assistance from the Global Environment Facility.
The project aims to promote an integrated landscape management approach in key agricultural and forest landscapes, reducing poverty through sustainable nature-based livelihoods, protecting and restoring forests as carbon sinks and promoting land degradation neutrality.
It is for this reason that training for a water point committee for a newly drilled borehole to assist the community with clean drinking water as well as for agricultural purposes took place at Zilitene in the Zambezi region last week.
The training is an activity between the Directorate of Water Supply and Sanitation Coordination in collaboration with WATS investment at Zilitene community in Zambezi region, with the aim of capacitating the community members in water management.
Regina Mwinga, the WATS investment landscape coordinator, said the training comes after the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, through their NILALEG programme, installed a borehole in the area to supply water to the community for their planned nurseries as well as nearby villages.
The borehole will also ensure water supply for livestock within the area.
One of the main activities of the ministry of Agriculture is to help communities in the respective landscapes in Namibia that are faced with poverty by giving them training on how to utilise natural resources in their natural environment, said Mwinga.
A borehole has been demarcated for the Zilitene community forest and will be handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform.
Mwinga further said a team has, therefore, been sent by DWSS to capacitate the community on how to utilise the borehole as well as how to engage their roles for the water point committee that will be created for the infrastructure that has come to the community forest area.
The committee has been mobilised by the community themselves, who will be running the ins and out and the know-how of the borehole utilisation itself.
Doricah Sitapata, the rural water supply officer in the ministry of agriculture says the water point was installed at the area for the benefit of all community members in Zilitene.
The members who are being trained will ensure there is fairness in the management and utilisation of the borehole, said Sitapata.
She further said community members would normally make use of the Namwater’s pipeline as well as boreholes that are no longer functioning.
“But now that there is a borehole, the lives will improve – and so will those with livestock,” added Sitapata.
Nuwe Likando, a caretaker in this area and a member of the community, said the training was going very well, and it would help improve their livelihood, as clean water was now within their reach.