AN EVALUATION REPORT OF PRO-POOR TOURISM STRATEGIES IN NAMIBIA

BY OROBOSA OMO-OJO Background

This report is written to evaluate the pro-poor tourism strategies in Namibia for Namibia Ministry of Tourism, using the case study report Practical strategies for pro-poor tourism: NACOBTA the Namibian case study, conducted in 2001 by three institutions; Overseas Development Institute, International Institute for Environment and the Centre for International Responsible Tourism at the University of Greenwich, along with some in-country collaborators. The study reviewed the pro-poor tourism strategies based on six other case studies. This evaluative report is partly funded by the Department for International Development and the Namibian Ministry of Tourism. The Namibian Community-based Tourism Association (NACOBTA) is a trade association with diverse membership, representing the poorest sections of the tourism industry and provides both micro and macro assistance to members. Conscious of this, NACOBTA main objective is to raise the income and provide employment for their members through tourism to improve the living standards of Namibians living in poor communities. NACOBTA adopted a pro-poor strategy that includes the development of CBTEs as niche to integrate members into the mainstream tourism industry and in partnership with government, NACOBTA works for the development and promotion of tourism policies.

NACOBTA activities and the Principles of Pro-Poor Tourism

The organisation operates at three broad levels: Local; which involves training, financial, marketing and technical support. Private sector; lobbying for support from private sector and soliciting patronage for CBTEs, including partnership between private sector and communities. Policy; advocacy for legislation, reforms and promotions.

It is apparent that NACOBTA has recorded huge gains at the micro-level; in terms of training, advice, marketing and publicity, technical support, grants and loans based on the Principles of Pro-Poor Tourism as spelt out in the PPT Annual Register (2005). Poverty is reducing although without the necessary policy support. On the strength of available data, NACOBTA objectives are in conformity with principles 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9.

The integration of CBTEs into mainstream tourism industry is the main strategy adopted by NACOBTA to create linkages with developed operators and tourists. This objective is in tandem with principle 2 that Pro-Poor Tourism must create linkages and reduce leakages from the local economy, so as to maximize local economic development.Additionally, principle 9 declares that one of the critical issues for poor producers is often access to the market access to the established industry and to tourists. It warned that initiatives that do not address how to market products of the poor and how to integrate them into the value chain ultimately fail. NACOBTA members represent the poorest segment of the tourism industry which rely significantly on communal land for subsistence farming with less than U$1 per day and the highest unemployment rates, it is obvious that NACOBTA was developed along the framework of principle 4, that: The largest beneficiaries of PPT are the financially poor and the marginalized; they are economically poor, lacking opportunities and services like health and education. The Pro-Poor Tourism principle 6 listed empowerment and control as major benefits for the poor and therefore advocated the active engagement of the owners of such initiatives in decision making. It is instructive to note that, part of NACOBTAs requirement for supporting any project is that it must be owned and operated by a community, communitybased organisation or by a resident individual who is a member of the local community. Apart from its primary role of providing financial and training support to its members, NACOBTA also represents their interests in policy development at different levels and in negotiations with mainstream tourism industry. Additionally, it liaises with relevant agencies to get land approvals for conservancies, including negotiations for mainstreaming the CBTEs with private operators. This is a fundamental part of Pro-Poor Tourism concept and principle 8 says that PPT will contribute little to the eradication of poverty unless it is mainstreamed and a poverty reduction focus needs to be part of the government master planning process and the way tourism businesses do their business. The benefit of using measurable PPT Partnership framework such as the principles of Pro-Poor Tourism for the assessment of any PPT initiatives is to determine the relevance of the initial business objectives.

NACTOBA Evaluation
SIDA, the Swedish Development Agency, a leading donor, revealed that NACOBTA is over-stretched with applications and that the organisations impact is evidenced by the profit made by CBTEs. The income of each member supports 3-10 persons. Each CBTE contributes $600 monthly to community fund. However, the process of creating linkages is slow and lacks credibility. The projects are faced with diverse issues ranging from lack of skills, capital, gender and incompatibility with existing livelihood strategies, regulations and bureaucracy, poor market access, low capacity, linkages between formal/informal and local suppliers. Others are lack of technical support, infrastructure, tourism policy, political unrest and data.

The situation is changing with grants and training, access to lands, tourism plan, investment portfolios, removal of red tapes with increased lobbying, centralised markets through associations and their linkages with the private sector and agencies. Infrastructural upgrade is on and with awareness about mutual benefits and social responsibilities, NACOTBA ensures tangible benefits accrue to the poor and that communities understand shortterm and long term gains. In order to relate the experience and knowledge of the poor to their business decisions, and reflect same on the consequences of each strategy, the short and long-term impact requires sustainable livelihood approaches to evaluate the livelihood choices that created sustainability and sustainable development goals. The impacts on their livelihoods are both positive and negative. On the positive note, the livelihood outcomes that are evaluated are: cash, subsistence incomes, increased well-being, improved food security and sustainable use of natural resources these are outputs determined by their inputs. About 20 livelihood assets and activities are identified and evaluated in this report. Overall, NACOTBAs training objective enables the communities and members to acquire skills in book keeping, management and leadership. With access to natural resources, communities are registered as conservancies and they exploit natural resources, donations. Through CDAs, decision making is participatory, communication is improving, power is decentralised and self-pride is rising. Infrastructure, including telephone, road and water resulted to better roads to CBTEs, improved communication, availability of borehole water for businesses and the communities, building of schools through CBTEs community funds, and provision of solar lights by donor agencies and CBTEs. Access to healthcare ensures that First Aid facilities are available at CBTEs and they are building clinics for host communities. Communities also have access to funds raised through levies, leases, and fees. Other livelihood activities such as farming, employment and migration ensure regular income for family members and access to cash. Over 163 full-time jobs and about 800 casual labourers are engaged by the CBTEs, in addition to skill jobs. Opportunities in the informal sector promoted informal sector; opportunities are opened now to take tourists to informal markets which resulted in increase sale of rafts and expansion of markets. The livelihood assets and activities of the different culture have encouraged local people to preserve their cultural heritage, which in-turn is promoting pride and positive perception. The feeling of helplessness has decreased while some groups have moved from being very poor to poor and poor to being better off; communities have become viable as rural skills and knowledge are in demand. There are also losses or problems impacts such as family separation, invasion of farmlands by animals, lost of lands/rights, water shortage, boundary conflicts, power tussle, increased noise and traffic. There is also a progressive erosion of culture due to influx of tourists and a danger of over-reliance on donations. Finally, privacy is invaded and exploited by tourist through audio-visual recordings.

Conclusion
NACOBTAs strength is its capacity to network with and influence various stakeholders. NACOBTA objectives are unambiguously pro-poor. NACOBTA operates within communities with high unemployed people who are the lowest income earners. The objective is to provide them access to markets and natural resources to create employment and raise income levels. The CBT managers are those who are poor but have minimal skills; social standing and in some cases, basic training but are sometimes unemployable. NACOBTA and its partners are contributing positively to the goal of sustainable growth, employment creation and poverty reduction. CBT linkages with relevant stakeholders are promoting cohesion. The control of natural resources is already bearing fruit, as communities look forward to proceeds. On the downside is donor over-dependency and to stem it, the state and private sector should support NACOBTA, since the communities have demonstrated some level of commitment. The state should put relevant policies in place to back NACOBTA. The absence of government commitment has prevented CBT and conservancy PPT from being incorporated into Namibian mainstream tourism. There are also fundamental challenges of poor infrastructure telephone lines, clean water, good roads and electricity. Although the impacts and sustainability of PPT should be measured on long-term basis, the short term benefits of NACOBTA are evident. A remarkable lesson from NACOBTA is the potentials of tourism as vehicle for achieving Pro-Poor objectives.

References
Nepeti, N. (2001) Practical strategies for pro-poor tourism: NACOBTA the Namibian case study [Internet], CRT, IIED and ODI, Working Paper. Available from http://www.propoortourism.org.uk/uganda_cs.pdf [Accessed 26th January 2012]. Harold, G. (2011) Local economic development and poverty alleviation. Course Manual, Leeds Metropolitan University.