Outgoing High Commissioner of Australia to Namibia, Gita Kamath, bid President Hage Geingob farewell at State House on Tuesday.
Gita said Namibia is one of Australia’s good investment partnerships in the Commonwealth in various trading areas, particularly the mining sector, where collectively Australian companies are the biggest investors.
She said the two liberal democracies share common values as members of the Commonwealth and have good cooperation in the United Nations (UN), where they co-chaired the UN high-level panel discussion on HIV/AIDS in 2020, noting that Australia recently increased its contribution to the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS to US.dollars 250 million to help countries end HIV, including Namibia.
“This year the Australian government contributed N.dollars 6 million to Red Cross Namibia to address food security in the northern regions, which were affected by drought. It is something Australia is fighting with as well,” Kamath said.
She further indicated that another area of cooperation is the education sector, where Australia offers scholarships for short courses to Namibians to study in various areas, especially climate change, noting that the two countries have similar climate patterns and are affected by climate change similarly.
Geingob on his part said the two countries have come a long way, dating back to the liberation struggle, when Australia supported Namibia through UN resolution 435, which helped the country gain its independence.
Geingob thanked Gita for the remarkable achievememts during her tenure, saying her active participation in some of the initiatives was important and commendable.