Aili Iilonga
CLIMATE change and the lack of water resources led to a historic agreement between member countries of the Southern African Development Community to consider desalinated seawater as a readily available resource in order to strengthen potable water supply and infrastructure development.
During the recent celebration of his 90th birthday, Namibia’s Founding President, Dr. Sam Nujoma, stated that the country should put the desalination of seawater high on its development agenda to ensure that supply of potable water will be readily available.
At the ministerial meeting of the Southern African Development community the Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, Alpheus !Naruseb, said Namibia have started talks with Botswana to explore the possibility of piping desalinated water from the Atlantic Ocean overland to Botswana in order to ensure the security of water supply in the long run.
The minister said that Namibia is conducting viability studies of seawater desalination to expand water supply to the central areas of the country and other en-route users.
He was speaking at the 38th Joint SADC ministerial meeting for water and energy where he gave a brief update on the country’s current water scarcity situation.
“As we continuously experience water shortages, threatening national water supply security, the President appointed a Cabinet Committee on water security supported by a Committee of experts to plan water supply security infrastructure development,” he said.
!Naruseb added that the newly constructed Neckartal dam, situated in the south of Namibia, will be used for domestic water supply, energy and agricultural food production.
“This year, we received below normal rainfall in the whole country, which affected mostly communal and commercial livestock and subsistence farmers who rely on rainfall for crop production for their livestock and livelihoods. All our major dams are far below the full supply level,” he noted.
