Repentant sinners: Namibians reduce booze consumption

ELLANIE SMIT WINDHOEKLatest statistics show there was a massive decline in the amount of alcohol consumed by Namibians 15 years and older – even before the Covid-19 pandemic.Statistics compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO) from 2019 in its world health statistics 2021 report indicate that Namibians consume 3.1 litres of pure alcohol per person a year.In 2017, the WHO reported that Namibians consumed 11.8 litres of pure alcohol per person a year.Namibia was at that time also the highest consumer of alcohol in Africa.According to the latest statistics, Namibia now falls among the 20 nations that drink the least on the continent.In Africa, Uganda was ranked the country that drank the most at 12.5 litres of pure alcohol per person per year, followed by Tanzania at 12 litres and then Burkina Faso with 11 litres.The African nation that drank the least was Mauritania at zero litres of alcohol per person a year, while Namibia with its 3.1 litres of alcohol consumption per capita per year, ranked 20th on this list. Taste for beerHowever, it seems the Land of the Brave has not lost its taste for beer, being ranked as one the top 10 countries when it comes to the consumption of the beverage per capita.Japan’s Kirin Beer University has released the results of its annual survey on global beer consumption for the last relevant year, pre-pandemic 2019.The latest figures reveal that the biggest beer drinking nation in the world is the Czech Republic, at 188.6 litres per capita.Austrians and Romanians are second and third, drinking 107.8 litres and 100.3 litres per capita respectively, with the Germans in fourth place, knocking back 99 litres per capita in the year.Namibia features very high on the list, coming in sixth in the world, drinking 99.5 litres of beer per capita in a year, which is 22.4 bottles more than the previous year and a total consumption of 248 million litres per year.Kirin has tracked global consumption since 1975, drawing its data from brewers’ associations and industry statistics around the world.In 2016, Namibia ranked 52nd out of 186 nations globally, while beer was the number one choice of drink in the country.Boozy bunchData compiled by the WHO’s alcohol per capita consumption table, which tracked the heaviest drinking countries from 2000 to 2016, indicated that Namibians consumed 7.84 litres per person a year.According to these statistics, the total consumption of alcohol per person had increased from 5.73 to 7.84 litre since 2000 to 2011.During that same period, Namibians consumed less wine, with the consumption dropping from 0.88 to 0.06 litre per person.Beer had, however, increased from 3.60 to 7.30 litres in that period and spirits increased from 0.21 to 0.80 litres per person.

Repentant sinners: Namibians reduce booze consumption

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Namibian Sun 2025-11-05

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Repentant sinners: Namibians reduce booze consumption

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Namibian Sun 2025-11-05

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