University of Namibia Press

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UNAM Press publishes works on topics related to Namibia and the Southern African region, reflecting the strengths of the University and the best scholarship in and on Namibia and the region. Published and forthcoming titles include studies of culture and languages; nation building and democracy; education; law; social and political history; autobiographies; the environment and sustainable development. UNAM Press thus plays a vital role in fulfilling the vision and mission of the University, as defined in its key statements, by disseminating the results of the university’s research across a broad spectrum of real-world problems, in order to contribute to nation-building; serving as a repository for the preservation, development and articulation of national values and culture, through the promotion of Namibian history, art and languages, and becoming a treasure house of knowledge at the service of national development.

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Labour law in Namibia
(University of Namibia Press, 2012) Parker, Collins
Labour law or employment law – the two terms can be used interchangeably – may be described as that branch of law that is concerned with persons in the employment relationship. Tebutt, JA put it succinctly in this way: ‘Briefly speaking Labour Law is to be understood as the common law of master and servant as expanded and otherwise modified by Industrial Legislation.’1 Put simply, labour law governs the contractual relationship between an employer and an employee. Flowing from that relationship, employers and employees have certain rights, obligations and liabilities under the law. Principles of other branches of law are deeply embedded in labour law. Chief among these are principles of the law of contract, law of delict, criminal law, statute law, administrative law, constitutional law and human rights law. Central to labour law, as already mentioned, is the contractual relationship between an employer and an employee. Therefore, principles of the law of contract are applied to explain the nature and consequences of the employment relationship. The law of delict is also employed to determine the civil liability of employees, employers and third parties in employment situations. Many countries have eschewed penal sanctions in labour relations, although criminal law still plays an important role in labour relations, especially with regard to unlawful strike, lockout, or picket, and the employment of minors. For example, it is an offence under s. 3(6) of the Labour Act 20073 for a person to employ, or require or permit, a child who is under the age of fourteen years to work in any circumstances prohibited by the Act. An employer found guilty of this offence is liable to a fi ne not exceeding N$20,000.00, or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding four years, or to both.
The Caprivi African National Union (CANU) 1962–1964: Forms of resistance
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Kangumu, Bennett
The history of the Caprivi African National Union (CANU) is barely covered in Namibian historiography dealing with the liberation struggle.2 However, in this chapter I am not interested in presenting a historical narrative of the rise and fall of CANU, and thus to mistakenly assume a simple linearity of events regarding the history of the movement.3 I will also not discuss the relationship between CANU and the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in exile and the subsequent ‘merger’ of the two liberation movements.4 The main focus will be to examine why the administration enforced a harsh clampdown on CANU activities and activists, forcing many into exile and preventing the movement from operating freely within Caprivi, beyond its official launch and its first meeting.
The 1978 election in Namibia
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Mashuna, Timoteus
taken place in Namibia since 1989 to elect the President, National Assembly, Regional Councils and Local Authorities. However, it is often forgotten that the first national democratic election in Namibia took place in 1978. Up to this date some elections had taken place for political structures (such as the Legislative Assembly), but the electoral roll had been limited to whites only. A historical analysis is required to consider the reasons why a democratic, national election was held in 1978, and the continuing limitations of the electoral system that led SWAPO, the leading nationalist party, to boycott the election. Sources covering debates of the United Nations (UN) during the 1960s indicate members of the UN were increasingly concerned that progress toward the complete emancipation of many countries and people under colonial status was too slow and should be accelerated. This concern led, for example, to the adoption of a declaration aimed at granting independence to colonial countries in September 1960. Growing international pressure prompted South Africa to rethink her colonial approach in Namibia and hence in 1963, South Africa commissioned the Odendaal Commission of Enquiry to investigate the affairs of Namibia and propose some sort of internal settlement that would prevent the emergence of nationalism so as to maintain South Africa’s upper hand in running the affairs of Namibia (UNIN, 1986, p. 39). However, despite these declarations and many other resolutions passed by the UN in an effort to end colonialism in Namibia and in many other countries of the world, the UN’s intervention only became significant in the 1970s.
Transforming the traumatic life experiences of women in post-apartheid Namibian historical narratives
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Namhila, Ellen N.
This chapter is based on the experience of interviewing five women, and writing and publishing their stories in a book with the title Tears of Courage: Five Mothers, Five Stories, One Victory.1 That book was published with the financial support of the Archives of Anti-Colonial Resistance and the Liberation Struggle (AACRLS) Project. The project was jointly funded by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Government of the Republic of Namibia and administered under the auspices of the National Archives of Namibia. Published in 2009, the book brought out for the first time the hidden and untold sufferings of ordinary village women’s experiences at the hands of the apartheid military, police and prison guards, during the formative years of the liberation struggle. Namibian women played a pivotal role in the struggle against colonialism and apartheid as they fed, clothed, nursed, and acted as a shield for the freedom fighters. The women whose stories are in the book were all arrested by the apartheid police. One was beaten until she had a miscarriage, another imprisoned in Pretoria where she had to give birth in jail, another had her house destroyed and burnt to the ground and her husband killed, another was beaten and tortured when the police could not find her brother (who was on the police’s list of wanted persons), and the last was sentenced to a jail term in Pretoria along with her two brothers. In the epilogue of the book, John Otto Nankudhu, Commander of Omugulugwoombashe, SWAPO’s first military camp inside Namibia, which was attacked by the South African military in August 1966, stated: ‘It is gratifying to see the story of these women written down. They carry a history of our country we cannot afford to lose. I know some of these women very well because it was mainly due to them that we survived in northern Namibia and escaped arrest from the apartheid authority for a long time.’ As Beth Goldblatt and Sheila Meintjies argue, ‘Our society constantly diminishes the women’s role and women themselves then see their experiences as unimportant’ (1996).
The Vagciriku-Lishora massacre of 1894 revisited
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Shiremo, Shampapi
One day in March or April 1894,1 the Vagciriku community of the Kavango Region in Namibia and Cuando-Cubango Province in Angola lost almost all its able-bodied men. This happened after a force of armed BaTawana men on horseback, commanded by Kgosi2 Sekgoma, which had travelled from Botswana, shot in cold-blood all the ablebodied Vagciriku men at a place called Shantjefu.3 Hompa Nyangana of the Vagciriku, his son, Mbambo, women and children were captured and taken into captivity in Ngamiland. The BaTawana army also confiscated all the Vagciriku cattle, guns and horses as booty. Compared with colonial massacres in Namibian historiography such as the Hornkranz Massacre of 1893, the Old Location Massacre of 1959 or the Cassinga Massacre of 1978, the Lishora Massacre of 1894 is relatively unknown. The small body of literature about the Lishora Massacre of 1894 is generally one sided and situated outside the ‘colonial narrative’. In Vagciriku oral history, Hompa Nyangana’s despotism is usually blamed for the Lishora Massacre of 1894 as it is described as being a response to the conflict between Hompa Nyangana and the section of the Vashambyu led by Hompaghona (Prince) Kanyetu. Hompa Nyangana is sometimes remembered as an authoritarian leader who used violence to settle scores with his rivals. The view that Hompa Nyangana played a direct role in the Lishora massacre has never been critically questioned, because the existing secondary literature and oral narratives ignored the primary and archival sources kept in Botswana’s National Archives.
The use of traditional medicinal plants as antimicrobial treatments
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Mumbengegwi, Davis R.; Du Preez, Iwanette C.; Dushimemaria, Florence; Auala, Joyce R.; Nafuka, Sylvia N.
Microbial infections are a major cause of morbidity and sometimes mortality, especially in developing countries such as Namibia. Severe poverty is the root cause of this undesirable situation as it leads to malnutrition, inadequate sanitation and consumption of unclean food and drink. This, compounded by lack of education and access to primary healthcare, results in infections by microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoa (Table 4.1). The most vulnerable to infectious diseases caused by microbial agents are children under the age of five, where 66% of deaths in this age group are a result of such diseases; 34% of all deaths are attributed to infectious diseases. This was underscored by WHO’s (World Health Organization’s) Regional Director for Africa, Luis Gomes Sambo, in 2011 when he said 63% of deaths on the continent were caused by microbial infections, with HIV/AIDS accounting for 38.5% of these (Anon, 2012). Thus, the most vulnerable groups are young children and individuals whose immune systems are compromised by HIV infection (Table 4.2). Community-acquired bacteraemia is a major cause of death in children at rural sub-Saharan district hospitals. A study by Berkley et al. (2005) showed that 12.8% of infants younger than 60 days had bacteraemia. Escherichia coli and group b streptococcus were the predominant infectious agents.
Of storying and storing: ‘Reading’ Lichtenecker’s voice recordings
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Hoffman, A.
With the invention of the phonograph – or sound/voice writer – by Thomas Alva Edison in 1877, the human voice could become an object. What so far had been the elusive, ephemeral effect of sound waves could be captured and stored on Edison wax cylinders. As an object the voice could at once be separated from its source and social setting, become transportable, but also indexical to its absent referent. The phonograph, writes Erika Brady, ‘was distinctively the product of 19th century scientific and social preoccupations’ (1999, p. 11) of which the collecting of (exotic) objects was certainly one. The voice, conserved on wax cylinders, could become part of ‘accumulative, itemcentered, indexic’ collections that were treasured by museums, academic institutions, as well as medical collections (1999, p. 14). The new technology of voice-recording was almost immediately introduced to the study of folklore and to anthropology. Shortly after the recording of voice had become possible, its storage was institutionalised. In Berlin the Phonogramm-Archiv was founded in 1900. Erich von Hornbostel, the Director of the Archive between 1905 and 1933, saw the aim of the archive as creating a collection of musical phonograms of all peoples of the world. The recordings were thought to provide comparative material of modes of expression – both in language and in music – that were deemed key to the cultural character of peoples.1 Today the Phonogramm-Archiv in Berlin is one of several archives in Europe that host immense historical sound and voice collections from many formerly colonised countries.2 To ensure the accumulation of such a comprehensive collection, it was the strategy of the archive to equip German researchers and travellers with a phonograph and wax cylinders. The German artist Hans Lichtenecker was one of them.
Understanding indigenous coping strategies of the Basubiya on the flooded plains of the Zambezi River
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Mbukusa, Nchindo R.
The Basubiya – or Bekuhane as they are also known – are often described as a riverine group of people (BNA, n.d.; Gibbons, 1904; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911; Shamukuni, 1972; Mainga, 1973; Mubitana, 1975; Tlou & Campbell, 1984; Likando, 1989; Masule, 1995; Larson, 2001; Gumbo, 2002; Ramsay, 2002; Manning, 2011; Ndana, 2011; Mabuta, Masule, & Tembwe, 2013). It is no wonder that Chief Kisco Liswani III warned that they would rather perish in the water than find themselves wandering in the drier areas away from the rivers and all that they would offer them. The Basubiya of the flooded plains of the Zambezi Region liken themselves to hippos and other amphibious animals. They feel that staying away from river waters ‘deculturalizes’ them. It is difficult to imagine the Basubiya outside this environment (Shamukuni, 1972; Masule, 1995; Gumbo, 2002; Samunzala, 2003; Ndana, 2011). In the face of possible relocation at times when water volumes increase, they might remark rhetorically, ‘ho zwisa inswi mu meenzi mpohonachi ihala?’ – ‘If you take a fish out of water, can it survive?’ From history immemorial, the Bekuhane (used interchangeably with Basubiya in this chapter) have lived along the Upper Zambezi River and its Chobe–Linyanti tributaries in southern Africa.
Colonialism and the development of the contract labour system in Kavango
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Likuwa, Kletus M.
The contract labour system in Namibia was a colonial invention and needs to be explored in the context of colonial historiography. Many scholars have written on the contract labour system in Namibia. However, while there is a general understanding of the system, the Kavango as a supplier of contract labour is neglected, as the historiography has largely focused on the supply of labour from the region that was labelled ‘Ovamboland’ (Clarence-Smith and Moorsom, 1977; Cronje and Cronje, 1979; Hishongwa, 1992; Kane Berman, 1972; McKittrick, 1998; Moorsom, 1989; Cooper, 2001). However, the area known today as the regions of Kavango East and Kavango West has a significant role in the history of migrant labour in Namibia and there is an opportunity to reassess the system using a different regional context. Although labour recruitment in the Kavango had been on-going prior to 1925, it was unorganised with limited numbers of recruits collected by colonial officials, and it was only after 1925 that the South African administration finally managed to formalise labour recruitment. The formalisation of the contract labour system in the Kavango occurred with the formation of the Northern Labour Organisation (NLO) and Southern Labour Organisation (SLO) in 1925. These were later amalgamated into the South West Africa Native Labour Association (SWANLA) which recruited labourers from the Kavango and Ovambo in the early 1940s until the collapse of the contract labour system in 1972. Using qualitative research methods to gather and analyse data, this paper employs oral interviews, archival and written sources to explain the encounters of the Kavango population with colonialism and asks why both German (1885-1915) and South African (1915-1989) colonial authorities needed labourers from Kavango, and what strategies the colonial administration used to extract labour.
Traditionally fermented milk products
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Heita, Lusia; Cheikhyoussef, Ahmad
Fermented milk is one of the foods that are highly respected and form a part of the daily intake in Namibia. There are many types of fermented milk in Namibia, which have different preparation methods. Milk fermentation assists in preserving the milk by generating organic acids (e.g., lactic and acetic acids) and antimicrobial compounds (e.g., bacteriocins), as well as flavour compounds (e.g., acetaldehyde) and other metabolites (e.g., exopolysaccharides) that contribute to the product’s organoleptic properties. Fermented milk provides special therapeutic and prophylacticbproperties against many diseases, symptoms and health problems. This chapter outlines the types of traditionally fermented milks produced in Namibia – omashikwa, mashini ghakushika and mabisi – their modes of fermentation and physicochemical properties, and the dominant microflora in them. The health and social benefits of these fermented milk products are also discussed
Oshikundu: An indigenous fermented beverage
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Embashu, Werner; Cheikhyoussef, Ahmad; Kahaka, Gladys K.
Oshikundu is a common beverage in Oshana, Omusati, Ohangwena, Oshikoto and Kavango West and East regions of Namibia. As in many parts of Africa, cereal foods and beverages form part of the daily diet in these regions. Cereal beverages, such as oshikundu, undergo fermentation, which is a natural process that has been used for many years as an economical form of food preservation. Fermentation kills harmful microorganisms and prolongs the shelf life of basic foodstuffs; it also enhances the nutritional value and organoleptic quality of them, as it does to their quality and stability. Oshikundu fermentation is dominated by lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The use of LAB offers many advantages, such as increasing food palatability and improving the quality of foods and beverages. Using starter cultures has led to the large-scale production of fermented cereal beverages in many parts of the world. However, the inconsistency of the organoleptic properties of oshikundu remains a challenge in household processing technology. Consumer choice is greatly influenced by the sensory attributes of oshikundu, such as its aroma and taste. Furthermore, the brewing technology depends on backslopping of an unknown starter culture, preventing the successful production of it on a large scale.
Namibia and Germany negotiating the past
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Kossler, Reinhart
Ever since Namibia attained Independence in 1990,, her relations with Germany have been marked by intensity, close cooperation and heated debate. The latter revolves largely around the 30 year period from 1884 up to 1915, when today’s Namibia was known as the colony of German South West Africa. For the last decade, an asymmetrical debate on colonial mass crime has been a prominent feature of memory politics. In this debate, the first genocide of the 20th Century, committed by German colonial troops during the Namibian War of 1903–081, forms the central axis. The debate about the genocide and the consequences of German colonialism is asymmetrical in various ways. First, it relates to the colonial relationship of violence and domination and to a racist ideology that denied acknowledgement of true humanness to the colonised – an ideological prerequisite for denying them the right to exist and for pursuing exterminatory measures against them. Asymmetry also prevails in the underlying power relations in the present. The means available to the descendants of the genocide victims to give voice to their cause are seriously inferior to the possibilities open to the German Government simply to ignore the victims or deal superficially with their demands. Namibia musters much less attention within the German public sphere than issues relating to Germany receive in the Namibian media. The issue is confounded further by the presence of a small, but economically powerful and vociferous community of German speakers in Namibia.
Indigenous knowledge of Namibia
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Chinsembu, Kazhila C.; Cheikhyoussef, Ahmad; Mumbengegwi, Davis R.; Kandawa-Schulz, M.; Kasanda, Choshi D.; Kazembe, Lawrence N.
Why this book, Indigenous Knowledge of Namibia? Nowadays, indigenous knowledge has gained prominence and attracted public interest due to its numerous applications in science and innovation: biotechnology, health, bioprospecting, pharmaceuticals, medicinal plants, agriculture, food preparation, mathematics, natural resource management, climate change and astronomy. There are many niche players in the field of indigenous knowledge in Namibia and many studies being carried out. Thus, although not all aspects of Namibia's indigenous knowledge are covered in this book, most readers from various walks of life - laypersons, scholars and policy makers - will find this book a very useful companion. The content of this book serves as a good starting point, because 'we cannot go further into the future without looking deeper into the past' (anonymous). Through their laboratory and scientific studies, the authors of this book server as guides through the journey to discover and record the indigenous knowledge of Namibia society. More importantly, their individual and collective works endevour to add value to Namibia's indigenous knowledge. The voyage and value addition are aimed at bringing greater clarity to some of the most perplexing aspects of indigenous knowledge in Namibia. Authors are aware of local communities need to benefit from their indigenous knowledge. That being said, the aim of this book is not to appropriate the indigenous knowledge of local communities, as most indigenous knowledge is already in the public domain.
Solidarity with liberation in Namibia: An analytical eyewitness account from a West German perspective
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Kossler, Reinhart
When asked for an eyewitness account, one’s own personal experience takes centre stage. In addition to drawing on that experience, I have carried out scholarly studies on the solidarity movement, particularly in relation to Southern Africa.1 It is a different task to reflect on my own involvement. I had been active in the student movement, in the movement against the war in Vietnam, and similar work for some years, before Southern Africa became the focus of my attention. I remember being part of a campaign in Heidelberg in 1968, aimed at alerting people to the colonial wars in what were then the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. That was my first stint of solidarity work with national liberation movements in Southern Africa. In 1979, after completing my PhD, I got my first job as Executive Secretary of the Informationsstelle Südliches Afrika (Information Service Southern Africa) in Bonn, popularly known as ISSA.2 That catapulted me into intense work in ‘counterinformation’, writing articles for a monthly magazine and publishing solidarity literature, all efforts devoted to making the West German public aware of the reality of apartheid and colonialism, to propagating the aims of the national liberation struggles and the overwhelming case for majority rule, and to helping activists in the local chapters of a whole range of organisations to strengthen their hand when they had to argue their case during public events, as well as in everyday life. The move turned out to be much more decisive than I had thought when I started the job.
Liberals and non-racism in Namibia’s settler society? Advocate Israel Goldblatt’s engagement with Namibian nationalists in the 1960s
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Henrichsen, Dag
Namibia’s settler society has a very weak, indeed almost non-existent tradition of advocacy of non-racism. Up to the early 1970s, none of the settlers’ political parties postulated principles of non-racism – that is individually based citizenship and democratic rights as well as legal, economic and social opportunities irrespective of apartheid’s racial designations and ascriptions. This is in contrast, for example, to political parties in ‘white’ South Africa or Zimbabwe (See Hancock, 1980; Marks, 1995; Rich, 1984; Vigne, 1997).2 South African visitors to Windhoek in the early 1960s, whether Ruth First, the radical left-wing journalist and writer or the Vice-President of the South African Liberal Party, Randolph Vigne, were either appalled or expressed grave disillusionment with respect to the prospect of any European non-racial political activity in this South African colony. Ruth First stated in 1963: ‘It remains a frightening fact that not a single white political leader in South West Africa has ever advocated a non-racial democracy’ (1963, p. 54). Two years earlier, Randolph Vigne had summed up his talks in Windhoek with, amongst others, Advocate Israel Goldblatt and African nationalists like Clemens Kapuuo, Levy Nganjone or Zedekia Ngavirue by stating: ‘If Goldblatt is right, and it is an impossibility to build bridges at this stage [in early 1961], the best hope of bringing about a non-racial group inside SWA and avert[ing] a racial clash, is to afford travel and study to some of the young African leaders.
Reclaiming indigenous knowledge in Namibia’s post-colonial curriculum: The case of the Mafwe people
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Lilemba, John M.; Matemba, Yonah H.
In Namibia, as is the case in the rest of Africa, different versions of an indigenous knowledge-based education, mainly through the formal setting of traditional initiation schools, was an integral part of community life (Amukugo, 1993; Ray, 1999). The initiation school, of which attendance was compulsory, was a system of formal education with parallels to Western forms of education. For example, initiation schools had a standardized curriculum, set times of instruction, specified age of children for instruction, assessment strategies, use of ‘qualified’ instructors (experienced village elders) and formal arrangements to recognize and celebrate those who successfully completed the education (Matemba, 2010). The curriculum offered included teaching the neophytes on ‘proper’ use of language, survival skills, customs, values, marriage, parenting, religion, respect for others, etc. (Mbiti, 1999; Amanze, 2002). As numerous studies have shown, the arrival of missionaries and colonial political powers in Africa from the mid-1800s onwards and their attitudes towards African cultural institutions impacted negatively on the viability of the African indigenous system of education, which was condemned as barbaric, heathen and an impediment to the consolidation of Christianity and Western culture on the continent (Abernethy, 1969; McCracken, 1977; Nduka, 1980; Ball, 1983; Comaroff & Comaroff, 1986)
Bioprospecting for ‘green diamonds’: Medicinal plants used in the management of HIV/AIDS-related conditions
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Chinsembu, Kazhila C.
I believe that while scientific research is necessary to improve the way in which our natural resources are exploited … our people must not be completely disowned … of resources that they have possessed for generations. It will be a sad day when the medicinal formulas of devil’s claw are patented by big pharmaceutical companies and thereby become depleted and unavailable to the natural owners of the resource. (His Excellency Dr Sam Nujoma, Founding President of Namibia at a symposium on devil’s claw, as reported by Wickham, 2001.)
Brendan Kangongolo Simbwaye: A journey of ‘internal’ exile
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Kangumu, Bennett
The Caprivi African National Union (CANU) was secretly founded on 7 September 19622 even though it had existed as an underground movement from late 1958. CANU did not survive within Caprivi beyond its very first public meeting, which took place in July 1964.3 Brendan Kangongolo Simbwaye, founding President of CANU, and two others, Alfred Tongo Nalishuwa, and Vernet Maswahu, were arrested at that meeting and this marked the start of a life of perpetual detention, isolation, banishment and ‘internal’ exile or displacement for Maswahu and Simbwaye. After his arrest, CANU re-grouped in Zambia under Albert Mishake Muyongo and joined the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in an alliance in 1964. Simbwaye was made SWAPO’s Vice-President.
Waking the dead: Civilian casualties in the Namibian liberation struggle
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Silvester, Jeremy; Akawa, Martha
One day in early January 1984, an old Ford truck set out from Ruacana. Twenty-five workers stood crowded in the back. After travelling just five kilometres from the small town the truck drove over a double landmine. The explosion left a huge crater in the ground and immediately killed ten of the people in the truck, whilst another six were severely injured, losing hands, arms and legs. None of the names of those who had died were provided in the press coverage of the incident. On 23 January 1988, four young people were driving a Toyota Hilux van near their home when a unit of the Koevoet paramilitary police unit opened fire on their vehicle riddling it with bullets and totally destroying it. Cornelius Nghipukuula, aged 27, was killed immediately and two of the other occupants were wounded. The three survivors were told to report to the police station the next day to pay a R100 fine as an ‘admission of guilt’ for driving during a curfew. These were just two incidents amongst many that occurred during the Namibian war of independence in which the casualties were not soldiers, but civilians. Yet the absence of the names of those killed in one of the largest landmine explosions that took place during the war seems symptomatic of the way in which civilian victims of the war remain unrecognised in accounts of the liberation struggle.
Indigenous knowledge and antimicrobial properties of plants used in ethnoveterinary medicine
(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Chinsembu, Kazhila C.
The use of chemical pesticides and pharmaceutical drugs to manage livestock pests and diseases is anathema to the environment and leads to the development of resistance. Most resource-poor farmers also face problems, such as inaccessibility, unaffordability and inappropriate use of chemical pesticides and drugs. Faced with these constraints, livestock farmers in Namibia and other African countries turn to indigenous knowledge as an alternative option and as a key to unlock the power of plants to control various vectors and diseases of livestock. Utilization of plant extracts as ethnoveterinary medicines (EVMs) is perhaps one of the most sustainable methods readily adaptable to rural livestock-farming communities. Plants identified as herbal remedies in the management of livestock diseases, especially those with antimicrobial and antiparasitic properties, present considerable potential for further scientific research which may lead to the discovery of new and safer drugs. Although many rural communal farmers use plants to treat livestock diseases, the current status of information on the use of plants in EVM Namibia, and the biological activities and toxicities of this flora, is still inadequate. For example, a complete systematic ethnobotanical list has not yet been compiled, creating an urgent need to record EVM knowledge in Namibia.

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