The operations of the Rössing Foundation are mainly determined by the demands and needs of its beneficiaries both in education and community development. Its operations are then further driven by investment opportunities available in Arandis under the Arandis Sustainable Development Initiative. Investing and driving interventions in both education and community development requires in-depth consultations to enable communities and beneficiaries to have a buyin and ownership in project implementation, this is a recipe for greater success.

For the past two years and the year under review, in-depth soul searching and a critical analysis of the Rössing Foundation interventions, brought about changes in the way we operate. For last two years, the Foundation used what is termed as a "School Based Centre Approach and Community Based Approach". The Community Based Approach has worked successfully in terms of direct projects implemented with communities within their operational areas.

With education however, the School Based Support did not work due to lack of buy-in and commitment from school leadership. This is a general phenomenon experienced in Namibia with the exception of a few schools in regions like Omaheke. The core factor hindering commitment and buyin in development projects, especially in education can be ascribed to comfort zones around non-action on poor performing schools.

The disadvantage for the Rössing Foundation was the fact that its performance was measured against non-performing schools and less committed school leadership. Continuation with this approach would therefore have resulted in a further waste of good resources and a new, more workable approach was consequently adopted by the end of 2009.

Click here to download the Rössing Foundation annual report (PDF - 2MB)(right-click, "Save Target As")