Namibia’s Efforts in Poverty Eradication
Namibia has made incredible progress towards achieving the targets of Millennium Development Goals (MDG), such as poverty. It has aligned its long-term vision 2030 goals with National development plans to supplement and boost the realization of the MDG’s.
The economic reform in Namibia has been commendable through the years before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the bank of Namibia preserved an accommodative strategy position to back the revitalization of the economy. From 2016 to 2020, inflation dropped steadily and represented a drop in housing and transport expenditures (African Development bank, 2021). Namibia’s reserves could cover five months of imports as of June last year, against to 3 months of the previous year. The country’s economy is estimated to develop by 2.55% in 2021 and 3.29% next year. The economic growth and reforms are backed by gradual regain and growth in tourism, mining, financial services, wholesale and retail trade, and progression in the regional and international economic trade. In Namibia’s ten-year report to the United Nations, their economy had grown by 4.5% between 2001 and 2009. They also achieved the 4.5% economic growth set for 2015. The country’s ministries and development partners are running extreme poverty eradication programs such as low-cost housing, security provision, and social welfare services (African Development bank, 2021).
On the part of international aid, Namibia received international aid from numerous sources given its potential in trade, especially in mining. A total of 130 million dollars was committed to the country by 2011 to support trade and help eradicate poverty. The contributors included individual donor countries and the EU. The government received financial and technical assistance to improve its trade and economic capacity to progress its development goals (Fillemon, 2019). The regime types that have overseen extreme poverty eradication have been working towards peace and political stability. The country is considered to be one of the freest and democratic countries in Africa. With a fragile and young economy, the government has maintained good foreign policies to explore greater regional and international integration in trade. According to D’Alessandro& Zulu (2017)), Namibia is diversifying its exports to include neighboring regional countries such as Zambia and Botswana.
The leadership of Namibia’s government and ministries have faced various challenges of planning and distribution of funds to specific government bodies. However, the country has provided a peaceful and secure environment to conduct business that enables economic growth. In this regard, the political, developmental, and financial institutions’ leaderships have been vital to ensuring continued efforts towards extreme poverty eradication. The rural areas in the country, which amounts to 61%, are their primary focus in reducing the poverty index rate (Hatutale, 2020). In addition, the country’s institutions, such as financial and development bodies, have been crucial in identifying rural areas that are critical in poverty eradication. The Bank of Namibia has implemented accommodative policies that have made it favorable to conduct business. Namibian Housing Enterprise has played a massive role in providing low and middle-income families with houses. Another institution is the SME bank of Namibia that finances small and medium-sized enterprises to the country’s population (Hatutale, 2020).
Sectors such as industrialization have constantly been creating avenues for people to get employment and reduce dependency. The mining and agriculture sector is the source of most wealth for the Namibian people. By 2016, Namibia had an employment rate of 46%, with 963,996 people in the workforce (World Bank, 2016). With its richness in minerals such as diamonds, zinc, silver, copper, and uranium, the mining sector is grown and exploitation expanding, meaning it shows remarkable progress in eliminating poverty and achieving its set developmental goals. Nevertheless, the country still has a long way to go in terms of trade and industrialization. It is situated in the coastal area that requires developing and forming trade paths into other possible trade partners such as Congo and Europe (Kagogo & Steyn, 2019).
