National Rural Development Strategy 2013/14 - 2017/18.

This National Rural Development Strategy (NRDS) 2013/14 - 2017/18 is a cross sectoral policy document for the five year period. The overall objective is: Achieve a sustainable economic and social advancement in rural areas. Rural development has been defined in a broad scene in Namibia and it comprises all relevant actions in rural areas performed by the involved stakeholders. To deal with this complexity the NRDS has been structured around four dimensions each with related intermediate objectives drawn from the NRDP: I. Coordination and Institutional Capacities; II. Rural Economic Development; III. Social and Employment Development; IV. Spatial Planning, Environment and Climate Change. A number of key cross sectoral programmes (components) within the three strategy dimensions (economic, social and environment and climate change) are also outlined in the NRDS.
The NRDS seeks to help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The relevant indicators are identified, such as: Prevalence of Stunting (Height for-age) under 5 in rural areas; Prevalence of Wasting (Weight-for-height) under 5 in rural areas; % of Rural Population with access to safe/portable water.
The NRDS promotes to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable. The subjective for the dimension of spatial planning, environment and climate change is: Ensure improved special planning and land management and the sustainable management and development of natural resources found in Namibia’s rural areas and its sustainable utilization for the benefit of the country’s social, economic and ecological wellbeing. The proposed components under the spatial planning, environment and climate change dimension include: Integrated and pro-active spatial plans developed in regions and planning and management of settlements/growth points improved; Improved growth point/settlement management.
The NRDS has a strong poverty reduction focus with a special focus on improving the situation for especially vulnerable groups such as unemployed rural youth, woman headed households and vulnerable ethnic minorities. Key targets at the end of the five year period include: To have reduced unemployment in the strict sense in rural areas from the present 130 000 to half through skills training and support to creation of own income generating activities for the unemployed, through empowerment of the most vulnerable and through the employment opportunities created through development of rural enterprises; To have created short term temporary employment (4 months a year) for part of the rural unemployed for them to be able to support their families, and the temporary employment will increase gradually from year 2 and reach 60 000 persons in year five; effective coordination and implementation systems and capacities have been developed within Government at central and regional level and across other service delivery stakeholders which can sustain the rural development strategy.
The NRDS further has a focus on improving the situation of subsistence farmers and assisting them in enhancing their efficiency, produce for the market and accessing finance. This is primarily envisaged through linking the farmers to value chain development initiatives that will facilitate their transition to perform farming as a business. Strategic objectives/components related to Rural Economic Development include: Improved business and investment climate in regions; Rural finance and value chain development; Improved land tenure and rural land management; Farming as a Business: Improved farm and rangeland management in communal areas. Key targets include: To substantially have improved the business environment and the support to rural businesses. The aim is to: 1. Achieve significant improvement in regional business environments in at least 8 regions 2. Develop 5-7 value chains incorporating large numbers of MSMEs and create employment/livelihood opportunities for a minimum of 10.000 rural inhabitants and increase/make more stable the incomes of others. Among the Economic Priorities the NRDS provides support in the following areas: Agriculture (e.g. support to range land management, introduction of value chains, training of farmers through mentor schemes); Manufacturing (e.g. establishment of Rural Enterprise Fund); etc.
The NRDS promotes to increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters. The NRDS proposes the component of best practice in climate adaption and disaster risk management under the spatial planning, environment and climate change dimension, which include sub-components such as: 1. Regional climate change and vulnerability assessment and disaster risk planning and capacity building; 2. Pilot climate and disaster risk management methodologies.