On Thursday 19 August 2021, Dr. Gabriele Geier, Head of Cooperation at the German Embassy and GIZ handed over COVID-19 protective equipment to Ms. Mildred Kambinda, Acting Deputy Executive Director, Department of Agricultural Development at the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform (MAWLR).

The donation was facilitated through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Government. The equipment, consisting of 3-ply masks, hand-sanitizers and refills, anti-bacterial hand soap and refill, spray bottles and disinfectant refills, is a token of further German assistance to Namibia in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. It is the objective of this donation to assist the MAWLR in ensuring the health safety of its staff at respective workplaces country-wide and its frontline workers in delivering services to farmers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Dr. Gabriele Geier stated that this equipment is being financed by Germany via the joint project

“Farming for Resilience”, implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Government. This protective equipment aims at assisting the Ministry in ensuring the health safety of its staff at respective workplaces all over Namibia while delivering services and serving farmers and local communities country-wide on a daily basis. She also wished to express her sincere appreciation for all the workers in the field for their engagement and dedication despite all the difficulties everyone is facing.

She emphasized as well, that the COVID-pandemic has much broader dimensions than pure medical ones. While it is of utmost importance to put all kinds of protective and preventive measures into place in order to protect as many lives as possible – it is equally important to look at livelihoods, inequalities, and economic and social resilience.

The main objective of the F4R project is to support the MAWLR to strengthen the agri-food sector and to improve the livelihoods of communal small-holder farmers. Since Namibia is still highly dependent on food imports, especially vegetables and fruits, increasing local production for own consumption and markets as well as diversification of production could contribute significantly to increase resilience towards external and climate-related shocks. In addition, it could increase employment, incomes of local farmers and nutrition security.

The value of this equipment is roughly 752.000 NAD. It forms part of a bigger package from the German Government to support the Government of the Republic of Namibia in the fight against COVID-19. The consignments of medical supplies which arrived from Germany in July and August in Namibia represent a value of over 11 million Euros or approximately 190 million NAD.