THE City of Windhoek and the Gochas Village Council signed a memorandum of understanding to find solutions to problems the two local authorities face.
Windhoek mayor Fransina Kahungu and chairperson of the Gochas Village Council, Leesma Swartz signed the agreement in Windhoek on Tuesday.
“The signing of this agreement is a formalisation of the partnership between our two local authorities, which implies joint partnership in finding solutions to the problems facing our people,” said Kahungu.
According to Kahungu, the City of Windhoek, being both the economic and political capital of Namibia, has played a leading role in supporting and learning from other towns and villages in the country.
She also said people with skills and expertise are mainly concentrated in Windhoek, causing smaller municipalities to rely on external consultants and the government for human resources support.
“From the City of Windhoek’s point of view, maintaining our local contacts and providing assistance to other local authorities enhances local government capacity necessary to tackle local development challenges in the context of decentralisation, while at the same time eases urbanisation pressure on Windhoek’s urban environment,” added Kahungu.
She added that cooperation is an effective tool to enhance capacity building, effective exchange of information, resource sharing and knowledge exchange.
The City of Windhoek revealed that the Windhoek-Gochas relationship was initiated in April 2019, when the Gochas Village Council announced its desire to create permanent ties with Windhoek in an effort to foster exchange.
The Gochas Village Council expressed interest in economic and community development, waste management, technical and professional cooperation, finance administration, capacity building, legal aspects and strategy and performance management.
Swartz said the signing was a new symbol and statement of the agreement between the two authorities.
She also expressed hope for both the City of Windhoek and Gochas Village to grow in the future.
At the signing event, Kahungu also briefed the media on the registration of structures in informal settlements as part of the implementation of the development and upgrading policy that was approved last year.
She said that 400 volunteers from informal settlements have been trained to verify and register informal structures to formalise informal settlements in Windhoek.
According to Kahungu, surveys will also take place during this registration, to determine the needs of the people and what types of crimes they are facing.
