Dormant potential: Strategies for advancing human development in Namibia

The report identifies a gap between Namibia's strong economic growth and its poor human development indicators, particularly in sanitation, electricity access, and nutrition. Using the International Futures (IFs) system, it models various policy interventions to determine their impact on GDP, extreme poverty, and infant mortality. Key findings suggest that while individual sectoral pushes like 'Health Extension' or 'Infrastructure Push' provide specific gains, an 'Integrated Development Push' combined with household transfers offers the most comprehensive path to reducing poverty and inequality, though it involves trade-offs in funding and specific health outcomes.

• Namibia's economic growth has not translated into proportional improvements in human well-being; it has the lowest percentage of its population with access to improved sanitation and electricity among the 51 World Bank upper-middle-income countries.
• The country faces a significant 'youth bulge', with the population aged 15 to 29 remaining above 40% until after 2030 in the Current Path forecast, which increases the risk of political instability.
• Namibia's education system has a critical bottleneck in the transition from lower secondary to upper secondary school, with only 41% of lower secondary graduates enrolling in upper secondary in 2017.
• The country suffers from a 'double burden of disease', characterized by high rates of communicable diseases—particularly HIV/AIDS—and rising death rates from non-communicable diseases for those over age 44.
• Namibia is highly dependent on imported crops, a reliance expected to nearly double by 2040, increasing vulnerability to international price shocks and climate change.
• Electricity access is heavily skewed toward urban areas, with approximately 75% of rural households lacking access, and the country remains dependent on imports for 40% to 80% of its energy needs.
• Despite high initial rankings, Namibia's government effectiveness and regulatory quality have declined relative to other upper-middle-income countries over the last 15 to 20 years.
• Scenario modeling indicates that 'Improved Family Planning' has the most significant impact on reducing extreme poverty (over 5%), while 'Health Extension' and 'Infrastructure Push' drive the largest increases in GDP (over 1.2%).
• An 'Integrated Development Push' combined with household transfers to unskilled workers is the most effective way to reduce the Gini coefficient and structural inequality, though it may reduce the impact of health interventions on infant mortality.

APA

Donnenfeld, Z., & Crookes, C. (2017). Dormant potential: Strategies for advancing human development in Namibia. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sar11.pdf

Chicago

Donnenfeld, Zachary, and Courtney Crookes. Dormant potential: Strategies for advancing human development in Namibia. Institute for Security Studies, 2017. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sar11.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Donnenfeld |first1=Zachary |last2=Crookes |first2=Courtney |title=Dormant potential: Strategies for advancing human development in Namibia |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=September 2017 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sar11.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{donnenfeld2017dormant, author = {Donnenfeld, Zachary and Crookes, Courtney}, title = {{Dormant potential: Strategies for advancing human development in Namibia}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2017}, month = sep, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sar11.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }