The Kavango West Region has experienced a remarkable population surge of over 40.4% between 2011 and 2023.
Olavi Kapapero is the Namibian Statistics Agency's Regional Statistician for the Kavango West Region.
"In 2011, in Kavango West Region, there were 86,529 people. And then, from that number, in 2023, as we are speaking now, the preliminary report indicates that there are 123,266 people. If we subtract there, we get 36,737. The population increased by that number. And that is 42.5%."
With this rapid population expansion comes the pressing need for strategic planning and governance.
Consequently, the Kavango West Regional Council realises the need to respond to the Delimitation Commission to redefine constituency demarcation boundaries.
The Commission has been granted a three-month period to engage with all 14 regions.
In preparation, the Kavango West Regional Council is already conducting consultative meetings ahead of the team's arrival in the region.
The Director of Planning and Development, Egidius Nambara, explained the necessity of holding consultative meetings with inhabitants, stating that the purpose is to gather community ideas for the presentation to the Delimitation Commission committee.
"We see this as an opportunity for us to go out to the affected community and engage our constituencies on some of the proposals that we have come up with as a regional council and as the leadership of the region. So the feeling is that it can be a proposal from the regional council or from leadership, but it must be a collective proposal that the region is compiling so that we can submit it to the delimitation commission when they visit our region on May 20 and 21."
Nambara further says that demarcating larger constituencies into smaller ones will enhance service delivery to community members.
"This will help us to take services closer to the people; it makes things easier so that we can have more coordinated development through regional and constituency engagements and through constituency councillors. Because you will now have more constituency councillors and smaller constituencies, it is easy to plan, especially for development."
Applauding the decision of the Kavango West regional leadership, a resident in the region, Frans Sapetama is hoping for a split of the Kavango West.
"Our suggestion is that we have sixteen constituencies in the Kavango West Region. That will now qualify us for two regions. One region can be called the Kavango West-Rupara Region, and the other is the Kavango West-Nkurenkuru Region. The reason behind this is that each region should have eight constituencies to bring decentralisation closer to the people, create jobs, minimise unemployment, and fast-track service delivery among our communities."