A wealthy Namibia: Home to the poor and hungry

Namibia is an upper-middle-income country with a population of 2.5 million people. Despite a struggling economy and the impact of Covid-19, Namibia is still ranked as one of the wealthiest countries in Africa per capita. Namibians remains the third wealthiest individuals on the continent with average assets of N$118 971 per person, yet it is home to the poor and hungry. Namibia remains home to the highest inequalities in the world, ranked the second most unequal society, with a Gini co-efficiency index of 0.567. With an estimated 18% of Namibians living in abject poverty, the extreme poverty line stands at N$293 per household per month (Smit, 2021).Namibia is blessed with mineral resources such as diamonds, copper, zinc, magnesium and uranium, but many Namibians live with hunger and malnourishment because they simply cannot afford to buy enough food, cannot afford nutritious foods or cannot afford the farming supplies they need to grow enough good food of their own. Rural households are the most heavily burdened by the consequences of poverty and hunger. This amounts to around 43% of all the households located in rural areas (The Global Hunger Project, 2021).Poverty is a broad term that indicates a shortage of common things such as food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine the quality of life (Schmidt, 2009), while hunger is a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat (Oxford dictionary, 2022). This piece aims to put forward some counsel the Namibian government can deploy to mitigate the state of poverty and hunger in our country.BackgroundIn his statement to the Cabinet in January 1998, Sam Nujoma emphasized the need for members of the Cabinet, in the interest of government and the people, to be clear “about where we are, where we want to go from here, and over what time frame”. He then called on the Cabinet to deliberate on a vision that will take Namibia from the present into the future.“A vision that will guide us to make deliberate efforts to improve the quality of life of our people to the level of their counterparts in developed world by the year 2030” (Vision 2030, 2004:19). Vision 2030 as a national plan subsumed poverty eradication measures. In June 2004, Namibia’s Vision 2030 was launched by Nujoma.Similarly, cementing government’s commitment in ending poverty and hunger, in March 2005, Hifikipunye Pohamba was sworn in, taking the reins of power from Nujoma, Namibia’s first president. Pohamba promised to reduce unemployment, poverty and hunger and he famously said “I will now accept this mandate to lead the nation to greater heights of peace and stability”.Just as his predecessors, in March 2015, Hage Geingob was inaugurated as the third president of the Republic of Namibia. Having received an overwhelming 87% of the vote in the presidential election in November 2014, the popular Geingob assumed the role of head of state with enormous level of public confidence and great deal of public expectation. In order to suppress poverty and hunger, Geingob created the ministry of poverty eradication and social welfare. In June 2016, the determined Geingob launched a food bank. The food bank was stipulated under the social progression pillar of the Harambee Prosperity Plan I to procure food for the hungry and poor.The president declared an all-out war on poverty, and calling for a multi-sectoral approach. However, despite the commitment by government for three decades to end poverty and hunger, about 1.6 million Namibians live in poverty right now (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, 2022).The genesisNamibia is one of the most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change due to the aridity to most parts of the country. Events resulting from climate changes such as droughts drive the majority of the population to poverty when they occur (Shikangalah, 2020). To some experts, Namibia experienced the worst drought in its history in 2019. Due to lack of rain, Namibia’s food production, both its crops and livestock, fell. The country lost 60 000 tons of crops and 60 000 livestock. The two main crops that are planted are maize, which declined in production by 26% between 2018 and 2019, and millet, which declined by 89%. The lack of rain in Namibia hit cereal production the hardest, leaving thousands of Namibians in the shadow of poverty and hunger (Meribole, 2020). More so, Venusti (2017) postulates that, many of the causes of hunger and poverty stem from the social and economic imbalances of the apartheid system that was introduced in 1964 under South African colonial rule. This resulted in a deep divide in Namibian society. Much of the black African population was denied proper access to basic productive resources and infrastructure, while white settlers had exclusive access to vast areas of land as well as a tremendous amount of support from government for their farming.The affectedOver the past decades, Namibia has faced a lot of droughts, leaving low-income-earners, the poor and the unemployed struggling to make a living. With a population of approximately 2.4 million people in 2018, 18% (430 000) of the country’s people faced severe acute food insecurity and needed humanitarian aid (Meribole, 2020). Many families who are low income, unemployed and poor find it difficult to buy food because of increasing food prices. Malnutrition in Namibia is also affecting children. According to the World Food Programme (2021), approximately 23% of children in Namibia are stunted in their growth because they do not eat enough nutritious food.The way forwardAlthough the reduction of poverty and hunger remains an overarching priority for government, poverty and hunger eradication requires political will, mobilisation of the required resources such as human resources and expertise, formulation and adopting management structures for better programme coordination and implementation to generate the expected outcomes. With all of the above, I urge the Namibian government to further consider the following to mitigate the level of poverty and hunger in our country amid the year of reimaging:1. Implement the Basic Income Grant. The proposal for a Basic Income Grant in Namibia was made in 2002 by the Namibian Tax Consortium, a government appointed commission. The consortium made the proposal for a Basic Income Grant in light of the high poverty levels and the unequal distribution of income (income inequality) in Namibia. After 20 years of debate, this great idea is yet to be realised.2. Economic security. Economic security means people have the skills and resilience they need to withstand hard economic times and grow their incomes. The government should plan national and regional works to overcome poverty by helping communities around Namibia gain the economic security they need to thrive. This includes training people living in poverty to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to secure a3. Provide agricultural support. Although the Namibian government has put forward some initiatives to improve Namibia’s food systems, more work needs to be done as more than 60% of food commodities are imported, mainly from South Africa. Through agricultural training and increased access to farming inputs, small farmers in communities will be able to increase their crop yields, enabling them to grow enough food to feed their families, diversify their crop yields and even sell surpluses at market.4. Improve management of water and other natural resources. Most of the rural poor depend on agriculture or other natural resources for their livelihood. Consequently, it is necessary that they have more equitable access to those resources so they are better able to manage their resources.5. Increase technology access and innovation. Technological innovations play an increasingly prominent role in the growth of leading industrial economies, thus creating massive employment through educational training and research. Reflecting on technology access and innovation, president Bill Clinton of the United States of America said the following in January 2000: “In the new century, innovations in science and technology will be key not only to the health of the environment, but to miraculous improvements in the quality of our lives and advances in the economy".6. Invest more in vocational education. It is a pit that most Namibians view vocational education as inferior to third stage education. Contrary to this, many Namibians who graduated from vocational centres have well paid jobs and some have excelled as entrepreneurs. Technical programmes develop the economy by bridging the demand and supply gap with highly skilled workers.In closing, let us echo the words of the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who once said: “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life”.*Reagan Munyungano Musisanyani is a food security activist from Windhoek.

A wealthy Namibia: Home to the poor and hungry

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-08

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A wealthy Namibia: Home to the poor and hungry

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-08

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