Mandate:

To carry out the physical, infrastructure, socio-economic and land use planning, population, and urbanization and to ensure sustainable use of natural resources in Kavango East Regional Council

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

The Directorate of Planning and Development Services is responsible for physical and socio-economic development planning of the region. It comprises of three divisions namely: 

  • Development Planning & Development

The Division planning and development is responsible for data collection, processing and analyses, information dissemination, implementation, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of socio-economic development programmes

Sub- Division Development Planning

The sub-division Development Planning aims to capacitate small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the region with skills and opportunities to promote their products and services as well as identifying and promoting local economic development opportunities in the region.

  • Engineering Services

The Division Engineering Services is responsible for technical planning, design of physical infrastructures, contract administration of capital projects, works inspection and maintenance.

  • Rural Services

The Rural Services Division coordinate, implement, monitor and evaluate Rural Development Programmes to improve the livelihood of rural communities.

The Directorate: Development Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation manage the following programmes, projects and services:

Rural Development

The Division: Rural Services provides support to a variety of projects in the Kavango East Region, with the support of the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development. This is done through rural development programmes, namely:

1. Cash and/or Food for Work

The programme has been running since 2010 aimed at creating short term employment opportunities for able bodied rural communities and in the process create/fix and maintain community infrastructure within the region. Rural communities identify public projects they want to improve or establish and once approved, they will be supplied with materials and in return Council compensate their labour with either food rations or cash payments.

2. Micro-Finance

This is a scheme aimed at giving free "grants" to viable new or existing micro/small/medium enterprises in the rural areas. People can apply and once successful, the Regional Council can fund the business in the form of grants. The objective of the micro-finance scheme is to promote rural industrialization, self-employment and local skills within rural communities and to eradicate poverty.

General Requirements:

  • All Namibians above the age of 18 residing in the rural areas of Kavango East Region;
  • Youth, women and community-based groups that reside in rural and settlement areas;
  • San community and other marginalized groups are encouraged to apply;
  • The proposed project should be economically viable and sustainable;
  • Cost breakdown for required amount and one quotation must be provided;
  • The proposed project must be registered with the Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and SME Development;
  • The proposed project must have a bank account or willing to open a bank account within three months after approval.


Regional Specific Action Plan

The Region Specific Food Security and Nutrition Action Plan depicts the people's voice on how they perceive and conceptualize problems and what type of interventions they want to happen in their area. This is a 10 year-plan from 2006 - 2015. Through this plan, the Regional Council is implementing some of the proposed interventions.


Support Resources to Poor Farmers

This programme was introduced during financial year 2014/2015, but implementation only commenced in 2015. The main aim of the programme is to reduce poverty through assisting the rural farmers with farm implements to improve their farming activities or to stock up with livestock for those who did not own livestock to improve their livelihood.


Rural Employment Scheme

The Rural Employment Scheme aims to financially support any commercial/economic activity within the rural area of the region as long as it has a potential to grow and create employment and reduce poverty. It is a new intervention that is in operation since 2012/2014 financial year.

 

One Region One Initiative

The One Region One Initiative (OROI) is another initiative/intervention by the Regional Council to transform local environments to make them more attractive to local residents, tourists and investors. It is a new concept towards rural development aimed at natural products/resources. Products that are very unique to the region ought to be identified., add value, promote them and market them to other regions. This can be done through this programme.

 

Water Supply and Sanitation Coordination

The Rural Sanitation programme is aimed at improving rural sanitation facilities in the region in order to improve rural hygiene and in the process create temporary employment with a focus on the youth and create and/or transfer some skills to the youth.

 

Regional HIV/AIDS Coordination Unit

The Regional HIV/AIDS Coordination Unit is responsible for multi-sectoral regional coordination, to mitigate and respond to the HIV pandemic in Kavango East Region, with the aim of reducing new HIV infections and providing livelihood support to those affected by, or infected, with the virus. This is done through the Regional AIDS Coordinating Committee.

 

Technical Services

Among many responsibilities, the Directorate: Development Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation is responsible for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure in the Region.  Most of the infrastructural development projects are funded under the Medium Term Expenditure Framework of the Government.

 

Development and Capital Projects

Development and capital projects are budgeted for under the Development budget of the Regional Council. Capital budget investment is geared towards funding of infrastructure, such as roads, electricity, water and sewage reticulation, office buildings, etc.