Environmental Investment Fund rolls out e-vouchers to urban agriculture grant beneficiaries in Khomas
The Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF) hosted the Urban Agriculture Grant e-voucher card issuance and terminal roll-out on 14 March in Windhoek.
The Khomas Region is part of the four regions identified to benefit from the roll-out under the project titled ‘Strengthening Namibia food systems to recover from emergencies and disease-related shocks through the Build Back Better (BBB) programme’.
Karl Mutani Aribeb, on behalf of the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF), thanked the government and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for conceptualizing this programme and the Japanese government for availing the funding for the programme.
“We are ecstatic about this project not only from a grant management perspective but because it talks about food security but more so on Urban Agriculture as most interventions are geared only towards rural food production,” added Aribeb.
Acting Director of the Directorate of Agricultural Production, Extension and Engineering Services at the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, Margaret Matengu, said the urban agriculture is a result of multilateralism and partnership between Namibia, UNDP and Japan through its Embassy in Namibia and further alluded that it is only through agriculture that Namibians can empower themselves and especially more of those, residing in urban areas.
Matengu urged the beneficiaries to work hard and ensure that they take full advantage of the grant and training that they will receive and to build on the gains of the project to better the family’s livelihoods and create revenue streams for themselves.
The programme will in total support 56 beneficiaries, of which 13 are from Windhoek Municipality, 13 from Swakopmund Municipality, 17 from Rundu Town Council and 13 from the Daweb Constituency of the Hardap Region.
The manager of the Social and Youth Development Division at the City of Windhoek, James Kalundu said they are excited to e part of this initiative and congratulated all those that were selected and encouraged them to ensure that they contribute to nutrition and food security.
“Monitoring work will demonstrate the ability of the inhabitants of our city when it comes to urban food security, hence we expect results from you as beneficiaries and if the City excels then the rest of the country can emulate us,” he added.
The grant contract is ring-fenced exclusively for the residents of the above stated local and regional authority areas and eligible activities are limited to horticulture, backyard gardening, poultry production, fodder production, agroforestry, orchard, vermicomposting and smart agricultural concepts.
The e-voucher system allows the selected beneficiaries to access goods and services from specifically selected retailers through the system. There are selected retailers in the various towns that beneficiaries will procure from for the different goods they may require towards the successful implementation of their various projects.
The urban agriculture programme is funded to the tune of N$2 million, which translates to N$500,000 per local authority identified under the programme.
