End of Year Update – 2020

By the end of 2019 we knew already that we would not be funded by USDoS as we were informed that they were only supporting Weapons Abatement, but we still had hope that the KfW would, seeing that they were fully setup with the administrative part of the KAZA project.

Our funding depends mostly on the International Donor Community, and there has been a shift on the donor priorities, and demining is not one of these, even so we decided to approach all the former donors and Embassies, to see the possibility of smaller projects.

We were still very hopeful that the Kavango-Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area (KAZA) project would yield some interest from the donor community seeing how paramount it was for wildlife and specially for the elephant population and migration.

All hopes were lost as the Pandemic hit the world and specially Namibia. The country entered a full lockdown in March 2020 and the focus on all government departments was to fight the pandemic in all fronts.

MgM was faced with a huge problem as borders between Angola and Namibia closed down. MgM’s Administration and financial offices were located in Windhoek, Namibia and our operational base is located in Xangongo, in Cunene Province in Angola.

MgM management faced a dilemma, we needed to be in Windhoek for procurement, fast internet services, access to KfW offices and our work with the Namibian police demarcating unsafe areas in the Bwabwata National Park. We also needed to support our personnel which was all in the Angolan side of the border.

After a few months the work being done at Bwabwata National Park stopped. The funds for the project were cut by the government as all reserves were poured into stopping and controlling the COVID pandemic. MgM management decided to close the offices in Namibia and move to Angola to see in what aspect we could continue to help the communities. Angola has MgM’s main Demining Camp, Logistics Base and School in Xangongo.

MgM also has a small team to support the local Police when reports of Landmines and other Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) come in from the surrounding population. MgM provide specialised skills for the clearance of these, and also provide the local communities with basic Mines Awareness, when ERW are uncovered and reported. All MgM’s demining equipment is held in this base.

MgM has always been committed in the assistance to the Angolan population, and the reports of our personnel showed that these communities needed us more than ever, only that this time was not only on the landmine clearance but with the normal running of their lives. The COVID pandemic left an already fragile economy even worse. People can’t walk on the streets to sell their products; informal markets are closed; restrictions on movements of the population are in place; testing became mandatory for internal movement, with exceptionally high prices.

MgM started 2 programs to help the population and the local government, we’re using our heavy vehicles to help with the safe movement of people to and back from the testing centres and hospitals and help with distribution of water to the isolated communities of Comuna de Naulila, 20km from Xangongo and Comuna de Ombala, 40 km from Xangongo. These Comunas are both in the Municipality of Ombadja which is facing a terrible drought since 2019. There is other NGO in the area but there are a lot of isolated communities that are not covered.