Visit from Oppland to Otjozondjupa

Audun Tron's speach at the closing session presents the most important conclusions from the discussions:

Honorable Governor, dear colleagues and friends from Otjozondjupa Region

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for organising our visit to your region, and for taking time on a busy schedule to spend these days with us. It has been an exciting adventure. We have learned a lot, and we have visited some of the most remote places that we have ever been to. It has been a great pleasure for us to meet you, get to know you and learn more about Namibia, and more specifically Otjozondjupa Region.

By taking us to Tsumkwe and giving us the chance to visit both a conservancy, a learning and development center and one of the village schools, we have got more insight into the challenges that you are facing, and this has increased our understanding of your situation. Knowledge about one another is essential when setting up a partnership! Of course we don’t know everything after three days, but it has been a very good start that will be a platform for continuing our discussion on possible areas of cooperation between Oppland and Otjozondjupa. It is fascinating to see that although our regions are different in many ways, we also face many of the same challenges. It is interesting and valuable for us to get a new perspective on some of the challenges that we face.

Now we have come to the end of our visit, and it’s time to sum up what we have talked about and experienced, and also time to look ahead. When we met on Monday, there were three areas that were outlined as the most relevant topics for cooperation between our regions; land management/regional planning; environment/climate change; and education. Out of these three topics, education is maybe the most important one. This does not mean that we exclude the other two – in many ways these topics can also be connected to one another. But as your Director for Education said: Education is the key! We agree with her statement – education is the key, both in your country and in ours. There are many ways for us to exchange knowledge, competence and ideas, and we need more time to find out exactly how to do it.

We have learned that the education area will become a regional responsibility next year, and this might also open the way for new ideas when it comes to cooperation between our regions. Actually, this process of decentralising power and tasks to the regional level is also happening in Norway, so maybe we can learn from each other how to handle this in the best possible way.

We have enjoyed your hospitality over the last few days, and we are very thankful for all the efforts you have made to make our stay a success. It is highly appreciated. We hope that you will accept an invitation from us to visit Oppland, so that you can get to know us even better. NAMAS has played an important role in setting up this contact, and next year they are celebrating their 30^th anniversary in Norway. We think this would be a good opportunity for you to visit us! Then you can combine a visit to Oppland with participation at the NAMAS’ celebrations, which will take place in the first week of June 2010. You will of course receive an official invitation from us, but now you are already notified of the time we have in mind!

In the meantime, we think it is important that we stay in contact and continue to discuss the topics that we have mentioned, and the content of a friendship agreement. We want to involve our colleagues at home and share what we have experienced here with the county council, our international committee and colleagues from Hedmark.

As I have already mentioned, NAMAS has helped us creating the link with you, and we would also like to extend our most sincere gratitude to Svein – for all the preparations and for travelling together with us on this trip. It seems to us that he knows everything about Namibia, and he has been patient answering all our questions. Oppland county authority signed an agreement with NAMAS earlier this year, which includes an annual financial contribution from us to the projects run by NAMAS in Tsumkwe. Coming here and seeing for ourselves how important these projects are to the population, we know that it is money well spent! When our two regions continue the discussions on how to work together, NAMAS will still play an important role. They are present both in Norway and in Namibia, and they have a lot of experience in running projects here. We should build on their success and hopefully bring in some new ideas as well.

We have come to the end of a very interesting stay in Otjozondjupa. We will leave you with more knowledge and many new impressions.

Thank you again, Honorable Governor, for hosting this visit. All the best to you and the delegation from Otjozondjupa region. The best of luck in your continuous efforts to improve the living conditions for people in your region.