Conservancies and community forests under the Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme. generated roughly N$109 million last year. 

However, the Deputy Executive Director for the Department of Natural Resources Management in the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT), Colgar Sikopo, says despite this success, financial management of these funds and poor governance remain a challenge within some conservancies.

Sikopo was speaking during an information-sharing session at the Government Information Centre (GIC). 

"We see poor governance in the management of funds. That is a big challenge, and it is driving this conference, so we find ways on how we can manage, and I gave an example of the 109 million, but we ask ourselves how much of this money has gone to the communities and made an impact on the livelihood. At the moment, we can confirm about N$20 million that has gone into projects. Yes, they pay salaries, but that financial management is not in good shape."

Sikopo says it is against this background that the Ministry of Environment will be hosting a two-day Community-Based Natural Resource Management National Conference from the 25th to the 26th of March. 

The conference, he says, will address challenges of financial management, governance, resource management and benefit-sharing mechanisms within communal conservancies. 

"Governance is also sticking to policies, regulations and guidelines, and once you have a good governance guideline, it will ensure that natural resources are protected and are utilised properly because the conference will also look at the concept of utilising natural resources in hunting, tourism concessions and joint ventures in the establishments, so government structure is important for these communities so that they have systems and structures in place and can manage their resources properly."

The CBNRM programme was established under the Ministry of Environment with the aim of empowering rural communities in managing and conserving their natural resources and wildlife and deriving economic benefits from them.

"The CBNRM programme is the anchor to our conservation, as it involves the communities which live with this wildlife, and therefore it has significantly contributed to conservation in this country because communities themselves have taken ownership of wildlife over natural resources, and they are able to put systems in place to protect wildlife."

Under the programme, to date Namibia has registered 87 conservancies and 48 community forests.