Bilateral meeting with The Honourable Inge Zaamwani, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform of Namibia

Rome - On the sidelines of the 44th Session of the FAO Ministerial Conference, the FAO Director-General met with The Honorable Inge Zaamwani, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform of Namibia at FAO headquarters.

The Director-General welcomed the Minister and appreciated the good cooperation between Namibia and FAO.

The Minister thanked the Director-General for welcoming her despite his very busy schedule, and congratulated him on the well-organized and successful Conference. She informed the President of Namibia had placed a strong emphasis on agriculture, and that the country continued counting on the strong partnership with FAO to reform its agrifood system, improve agricultural production, and establish value chains, particularly in the production of pearl millet under the FAO One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) initiative. The Minister also added that as Namibia depended on rain for its agriculture, there was a need to develop a National Irrigation Master Plan and requested FAO’s technical expertise in this regard.

In his response, the Director-General reaffirmed FAO’s commitment to support Namibia, including in agricultural production and in livestock farming with the objective of increasing exportation, as well as for the transformation of its agrifood system to make it more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable.