Category: Africa

Newcomers to Windhoek are often quite unsettled at first. In the ‘better’ residential areas of Windhoek, all residential buildings and especially the townhouse complexes seem to be secured like the proverbial Fort Knox in the USA. Numerous security measures shape the first impression and give newcomers the feeling of being in an extremely dangerous city:…

Shopping & Cost of Living As long as you have the appropriate income, you can buy everything (or at least almost everything) in Windhoek (and this also applies to Swakopmund, Walvis Bay, Omaruru and Otjiwarongo to a lesser extent) that you would get in any European city of a corresponding size. In Windhoek there are…

Currency: Namibia Dollar (N $) Exchange rate: N $ 17.76 per € (Dec. 28, 2020) Time zone: UTC +1 Country code (phone): +264 Climate (for capital): dry-warm Churches According to itypejob, there are many churches of different denominations and faiths in Windhoek. One of the landmarks of German history is the famous Christ Church above…

The journey to Namibia takes place in the vast majority of cases by flight to Windhoek. In the pre-Corona period, three airlines offered direct flights from Germany to Windhoek: Air Namibia, Condor and, since October 2019, Eurowings (all flights to and from Frankfurt). Air Namibia flew the route Windhoek – Frankfurt – Windhoek 6 times…

A visa is required to enter Namibia. For German citizens, a normal tourist visa (for a maximum of three months) is issued directly on arrival at Hosea Kutako Airport in Windhoek, free of charge and unbureaucratically. It is important, however, that the passport is still valid for at least six months and has at least…

The road network in Namibia is – in African comparison – excellent in large parts of the country. It is true that only a few thousand kilometers of roads are tarred and the remaining roads are gravel and on the coast partly also salt roads. But even these unpaved roads (at least the road category…

Living in Windhoek You should choose your house or apartment very carefully and also take security aspects into account (see also the section on ‘Security situation’). If you live in Windhoek as an expatriate and can afford the rents, which are quite high by African standards, you will usually concentrate primarily on the eastern and…

In Namibia, private customers only have a very limited choice of banks. There are only four major commercial banks and three of these four are Namibian branches of South African banks: Bank Windhoek (the only Namibian bank) as well as Nedbank, Standard Bank and First National Bank. The banks in Namibia are – not only…

Pets Import and export The importation of dogs (and cats) into Namibia has become more complicated than it was a few years ago. The procedure is too complicated to explain in detail here. Three different permits are required for import, which can only be obtained one after the other. In addition, the dog or cat…

The health system in Namibia shows parallels to the education system in some respects. Here, too, there is a class society and the health system also suffers, at least in the state sector, from inadequate qualifications and motivation of its employees, both of which are again at least partially the result of poor working conditions…

The mothers and fathers of the Namibian constitution faced a problem with independence. Which of the many languages should be included in the new constitution as the official language? Afrikaans, the lingua franca of the former Protectorate of South West Africa, was the language of the South African ‘occupiers’ and was therefore out of the…

The cultural scene and cultural offerings are very manageable in Namibia, which of course is also due to the country’s relatively small population and the small size of its cities. The cultural offer is mainly concentrated in the capital Windhoek, as it has the largest number of potential buyers with around 375,000 residents. In addition…

There are numerous studies on the education system in Namibia. Actually everyone who is involved in the Namibian education sector agrees that the education system is a permanent problem area, especially primary and secondary schools. For many years, Namibia has been investing an extremely high proportion of its national budget in the education sector. In…

Position of woman When it comes to the position of women, a distinction must be made between women with a good education and training, who are mainly concentrated in the urban population, and less educated women in the countryside and in the squatter settlements on the outskirts of the cities. The educated Namibian woman is…

Proportion of literate adults: 88.3% (2019, UN HDR) Major religions: Christians 80 – 90% (mostly Lutherans) Urban population: 50% (2019, UN Human Development Report (HDR)) Life expectancy (female / male): 63.4 years (2019, UN HDR) Gender Inequality Index: 0.460 (2019, 130th place out of 162, UN HDR) Number of births: 3.07 / woman (2020, estimated,…

Namibia has always received extensive development aid in the past and this is still the case today. In the first 20 years after independence alone, Namibia received an average of around 95 million euros per year in bilateral development aid (OECD countries plus European Community). In addition, there were other grants from the World Bank…

Improving Income: Secondary Sector In the secondary sector, the as yet unexploited economic potential is only very small. In view of the dynamic economic development in countries such as India, China, South Korea or Brazil, Namibia will find it difficult to build up processing industries that are competitive on the world market and whose complexity…

Unfortunately, Namibia’s agriculture offers only limited development opportunities. On the whole, Namibia’s agricultural potential (mainly extensive livestock farming), which is only quite small anyway, appears to be largely exhausted, at least in the ‘Commercial Areas’. With only about 47,000 hectares, the potentially irrigable agricultural area is only small, even if the necessary water could be…

To improve the economic situation of a country there are two options: reduce expenditure and / or increase income. This also applies to Namibia. There are a few ways to reduce expenses. The potential to significantly improve the income side by expanding existing and developing new branches of the economy is limited. Reduction in expenses…

The bureaucracy inevitably results from the inflated and inefficient public service and the equally inefficient state-owned companies. This in turn has a direct impact on the government’s financial flexibility. In the meantime, Namibia has to spend the lion’s share of the government budget on personnel costs alone, so little is left for productivity-enhancing investments (e.g….

Dependence on South Africa The Namibian currency, the ‘Nam Dollar’ (N $), has been pegged to the South African Rand at a ratio of 1: 1 for many years. All in all, this was and is definitely the right decision, as it considerably simplifies Namibia’s trade – especially goods imports and exports. In addition to…

Overview Namibia’s structural economic problems are partly a consequence of Namibia’s history and its peripheral location on the south-western end of the African continent. But a substantial part of the economic problems is also ‘homemade’. The main problem areas of the Namibian economy are: low diversification Dependence on South Africa lack of sales markets Bureaucracy…

Namibia’s economic starting position when it gained independence in 1990 was significantly better than that of most other African countries, as the following assessment by Robin Sherbourne, Namibia’s most renowned economist, shows: “Yet the reality is Namibia enjoys advantages which many other countries would envy: a long coastline, a great climate, abundant natural resources, stunning…

GDP (PPP): US $ 22.74 billion (2019) Per capita income (PPP): US $ 9448 (2019) Human Development Rank (HDI): 0.645 (2018, ranked 130 of 189) Proportion of poverty (national poverty line): 28.7% (2010, estimated) Distribution of income (Gini coefficient): 55.0 (2018) Economic Transformation Index (BTI): 5.43 (2020, rank 72 of 137) Secondary Sector Construction industry…

Fishing In addition to mining, fishing also plays an important role in Namibia. As few people know, Namibia is one of the top ten fishing nations in the world in terms of catch value, but it is hardly perceived by the public as a fishing nation. On the one hand, this is due to the…

The mining industry, with its two main pillars diamond and uranium mining, still forms the backbone of Namibian exports with a share of around 50%. Because of the high level of technology, it offers relatively few, but well-paid jobs (around 7,000 – 8,000). Diamond mining Now that the onshore diamond deposits have been largely exploited,…

“The number of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa which can boast such a track record of economic success – especially those emerging from long and bloody struggles to rid themselves of colonialism – are limited if they exist at all. This alone makes Namibia a very special case. ” Source: Sherbourne, Robin (2010): Guide to the…

The economic geographic map of Namibia shows in a somewhat simplified form the spatial distribution of various economically relevant developments, development potentials and projects i as well as the most important growth poles and development axes of the country. Some of the projects shown have now been implemented (e.g. the Neckartaldamm near Keetmanshoop, which was…

The unsolved land question A big, unsolved problem is still the land question. One of the most important domestic political events was undoubtedly the Second National Land Conference, initially planned for September 2017 but then postponed shortly before the start of the event. This long-awaited and long-requested land conference finally took place from October 2nd…

The Herero War / Genocide Discussion Since 2014/2015 there has been another initiative to get rid of the ‘problem’ once and for all. Both the German and Namibian sides have each appointed a special ‘special representative’ who has since sounded out – largely confidentially and behind closed doors – the scope for action of both…