It is laughable

The very large drought conference that took place in the capital last week brought to the fore some interesting views on the prevailing drought and the possibility of further, extended droughts in the sub-region’s near future. There were interesting perspectives on the impact of the drought and climate change on the continent’s youth and of course, the impacts on the agricultural sectors and the state of food security.
What came to the fore during the five days was that most said the conference was “timely”. Yes, timely is what they said.
With the dams empty and N$600 million needed to feed a quarter of Namibia’s people, the conference was timely.
No, ladies and gentlemen. The conference was late. Far too little, far too late.
You were warned.
Not that anyone needed to be warned for Namibia has her dry and her wet cycles. They are becoming worse, of course, but come they will come.
The last El Nino with the power that this past one had was in 1997. And there we had a drought policy of which many elements were never implemented. The drought fund, the fodder subsidy scheme, the role of stakeholders was never discussed and there was no provision made for the review of mechanisms.
Are we serious?
And then we are told that it is not lack of planning but climate change that is to blame. No, it is lack of planning, lack of implementation of the few plans that were indeed made, and lack of real, tangible action.
We can revert back to the Windhoek crisis. The City must have known that the population cannot almost double and not add any infrastructure. Why was government not engaged to enhance decentralisation to stop or slow the urbanisation rate to Windhoek.
And of course, the pollution of the paltry water resources we have.
Nothing was addressed. We wait for God to send us rain and if he does not, we do what we always do. We react. We do not plan and we do not implement.
But the conference was “timely”. It becomes laughable when everyone at the conference speaks of “early warning systems”.