Bagani is a town on the south-western banks of the Okavango River

Okavango River

The Okavango River is a river in southwest Africa. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, running southeastward for . It begins in Angola, where it is known as the Cubango River...

 in the Kavango Region, Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

, 200 km east of Rundu

Rundu

Rundu is the capital of the Kavango Region, northern Namibia, on the border with Angola on the banks of the Okavango River about 1000 m above sea level. The place normally receives an annual average rainfall of , although in the 2010/2011 rainy season were measured.Rundu grows rapidly...

 and near the Popa Falls on the Okavango River. Bagani has a population of around 2.000 inhabitants and is homestead of the local Mbukushu

Mbukushu

Mbukushu is a traditional Kavango kingdom in what is today Namibia. Its people speak the Mbukushu language.- References :* *...

 kings.

On the opposite, north-eastern banks of the river lies Bufalo in Caprivi

Caprivi

-Places:* Caprivi Region, an administrative province of Namibia* Caprivi Strip, a part of Namibia* The Caprivi Conflict, a conflict between the Caprivi Liberation Army and the Namibian government* East Caprivi, a former bantustan in South West Africa...

 and the two towns are linked via a nearby border post.

History

The history of Bagani (Mbukushu

Mbukushu language

Mbukushu or Thimbukushu is a Bantu language spoken by 45,000 people along the Okavango River in Namibia, where it is a national language; in Botswana; in Angola; and in Zambia, where it is an official regional language. It appears to be an divergent lineage of Bantu.Mbukushu is one of several...

: "the old place") is closely linked with the history of the Mbukushu people, the easternmost of the five kingdoms of the Kavango

Kavango

The Kavango people, also known as the vaKavango, reside on the Namibian side of the Namibian–Angolan border along the Kavango River. They are mainly riverine living people, but about 20% reside in the dry inland. Their livelihood is based on fishery, livestock-keeping and cropping...

 people. Successor of king Mayavero I. became fumu Mbambo. Bagani was founded in 1820 and 1880.

Since independence of Namibia in 1990 and in particularly since an ongoing decentralisation

Décentralisation

Décentralisation is a french word for both a policy concept in French politics from 1968-1990, and a term employed to describe the results of observations of the evolution of spatial economic and institutional organization of France....

policy, Bagani has gained some investments.

Economy and traffic

Compared to many other Villages in Namibia, Bagani is still underdeveloped. Like many Villages in Northern Namibia, Bagani suffered from a bad infrastructure and the political unrest in neighboring Angola. Until then, the economy of Bagani was characterized by small farmers with only few general services: next to a school, a small clinic and Bagani had no other shops.