Water scarcity continues to be a challenge in some parts of the Erongo Region, and Governor Neville Andre has urged the Orano Erongo Desalination Plant to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the government to help fight the water crisis in rural areas of the region.

Andre said this during the opening of the visitor centre at the Erongo Desalination Plant, 35 kilometres outside Swakopmund.

Neville Andre says there's nothing more essential to life on earth than water. Yet there's a global water crisis.

Andre says people in rural areas are struggling to access the quantity and quality of water they need for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing, and growing their food.

He says that water supply and sanitation support in rural areas are more challenging due to the settlements located mostly in environmentally fragile areas.

He further says that development models are dominated by diverse cultural values, poor economic conditions, and associated cost recovery challenges.

In many cases, scattered settlements dominated by an agro-based economy and limited water resources give rise to challenges for infrastructure provision.

"The Erongo Region is known for its contrasting landscape, which affects its rainfall patterns. We have rural areas with little rainfall, and this affects the economic well-being of our communities, specifically in our rural areas, because the government spends a lot of money drilling boreholes in the region. In some places where we drill boreholes, you get water; in other areas, we are not fortunate to get water that is fit for human consumption."

The Managing Director of Orano Erongo Desalination Plant, Tommie Gouws, says due to the region's geographical landscape and distances in between, it will be costly for the company to pump water to faraway areas.

"Unfortunately, we have no pipeline or connection to move water to any other areas that all need to be developed. There are also challenges. We are at sea level, and Usakos is 2000 metres above sea level. Long distances. The beautiful thing about Namibia is that we have open spaces, but yes, that's also a challenge that we have."

The Erongo Desalination Plant is located 35 kilometres north of Swakopmund, near the settlement of Wlozkasbaken in the Namib Desert.

It is the largest reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant in southern Africa.