reintroduced. The country also has the largest population in southern Africa of cheetah not protected within national parks. There are more than 20 species of antelope ranging from elands to Damara dik-diks. Namibia is also home to many smaller mammals, including mongooses, jackals, and badgers. 

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The three main wildlife attractions at national parks and reserves in Namibia are Etosha National Park, Waterberg National Park, and Cape Cross Seal Reserve.

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Government and politics

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Namibia is a unitary semi-presidential representative democratic republic. The president of Namibia is elected to a five-year term and is both the head of state and the head of government. All members of the government are individually and collectively responsible to the legislature. The Constitution of Namibia outlines the following as the organs of the country's government: Executive: executive power is exercised by the President and the government. Legislature: Namibia has a bicameral Parliament with the National Assembly as lower house, and the National Council as the upper house. Judiciary: Namibia has a system of courts that interpret and apply the law in the name of the state. While the constitution envisaged a multi-party system for Namibia's government, the SWAPO party hasbeen dominant since independence in 1990.

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Foreign relations

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Namibia has a largely independent foreign policy with persisting affiliations with states that aided the independence struggle, including Cuba. With a small army and a fragile economy, the Namibian government's principal foreign policy concern is developing strengthened ties within the Southern African region. A dynamic member of the Southern African Development Community, Namibia is a vocal advocate for greater regional integration. It became the 160th member of the UN on April 23 1990. On its independence it became the 50th member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

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Military

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In early 2020, The Global Firepower Index (GFP) reported that Namibia's military is ranked as one of the weakest in the world, at 126th out of 137 countries. Among 34 African countries, Namibia is also poorly ranked at the 28th position. Despite this, government spending for the Ministry of Defense stood at more than $5 million (a 1.2 percent decrease from the previous financial year). With close to $6 billion Namibian dollars (in 2021 $411 million US) the Ministry of Defense receives the fourth highest amount of money from government per ministry. Nami- bia does not have any enemies in the region, though it has been involved in various disputes regarding borders and construction plans.

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The Namibian constitution defines the role of the military as "defending the territory and national interests." Namibia formed the Namibian Defense Force (NDF), comprising former enemies in a 23-year bush war: the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) and South West African Territorial Force (SWATF). The British formulated the plan for integrating these forces and began training the NDF, which consists of a small headquarters and five battalions. The United Nations Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG)'s Kenyan infantry battalion remained in Namibia for three months after independence to help train the NDF and to stabilize the north. According to the Namibian Defense Ministry, enlistments of both men and women will number no more than 7,500. The chief of the Namibian Defense Force is Air Vice Marshal Martin Kambulu Pinehas. In 2017, Namibia signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

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Administrative divisions

 

Namibia is divided into 14 regions which are subdivided into 121 constituencies. The administrative division of Namibia is tabled by Delimitation Commissions and accepted or declined by the National Assembly. Since state foundation four Delimitation Commissions have delivered their work, the last one in 2013 under the chairmanship of Judge Alfred Siboleka. Regional councillors are directly elected through secret ballots (regional elections) by the inhabitants of their constituencies. Local authorities in Namibia can be in the form of municipalities (either Part 1 or Part 2 municipalities), town councils or villages.

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Economy

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Namibia's economy is tied closely to South Africa’s due to their shared history. The largest economic sectors are mining, agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism. Namibia has a highly developed banking sector with modern infrastructures, such as online banking and cell phone banking. The Bank of Namibia (BoN) is the central bank of Namibia responsible for performing all other functions ordinarily performed by a central bank. There are five BoN authorized commercial banks in Namibia—Bank Windhoek, First National Bank, Nedbank, Standard Bank and Small, and Medium Enterprises Bank.

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According to the Namibia Labor Force Survey Report 2012, conducted by the Namibia Statistics Agency, the country's unemployment rate is 27.4 percent. "Strict unemployment" (people actively seeking a full-time job) stood at 20.2 percent in 2000, 21.9 percent in 2004 and spiraled to 29.4 percent in 2008. Under a broader definition (including people who have given up searching for employment) unemployment rose to 36.7 percent in 2004. This estimate considers people in the informal economy as employed. Labor and Social Welfare Minister Immanuel Ngatjizeko praised the 2008 study as “by far superior in scope and quality to any that has been available previously,” but its methodology has also received criticism.

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In 2004 a labor act was passed to protect people from job discrimination stemming from pregnancy and HIV/AIDS status. In early 2010 the government tender board announced that "henceforth 100 per cent of all unskilled and semi-skilled labor must be sourced, without exception, from within Namibia."

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In 2013, global business and financial news provider, Bloomberg, named Namibia the top emerging market economy in Africa and the 13th best in the world. Only four African countries made the Top 20 Emerging Markets list in the March 2013 issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine, and Namibia was rated ahead of Morocco (19th), South Africa (15th), and Zambia (14th). Worldwide, Namibia also fared better than Hungary, Brazil, and Mexico. Bloomberg Markets magazine ranked the top 20 based on more than a dozen criteria.

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The data came from Bloomberg's own financial-market statistics, IMF forecasts and the World Bank. The countries were also rated on areas of particular interest to foreign investors: the ease of doing business, the perceived level of corruption and economic freedom. To attract foreign investment, the government has made improvement in reducing red tape resulted from excessive government regulations, making Namibia one of the least bureaucratic places to do business in the region. Facilitation payments are occasionally demanded by customs due to cumbersome and costly customs procedures.

 

Namibia is also classified as an Upper Middle Income country by the World Bank, and ranks 87th out of 185 economies in terms of ease of doing business. The cost of living in Namibia is relatively high because most goods, including cereals, need to be imported. Its capital city, Windhoek, is the 150th most expensive place in the world for expatriates to live. Taxation in Namibia includes personal income tax, which is applicable to the total taxable income of an individual. All individuals are taxed at progressive marginal rates over a series of income brackets. The value-added tax (VAT) is applicable to most of the commodities and services.

 

Despite the remote nature of much of the country, Namibia has seaports, airports, highways, and railways and railways. It seeks to become a regional transportation hub. It has an important seaport and several landlocked neighbors. The Central Plateau already serves as a transportation corridor from the more densely populated north to South Africa, the source of 80 percent of Namibia's imports.

 

Agriculture

 

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Namibia contracted 1.39 percent in the third quarter of 2021 over the previous quarter, according to the Namibian Central Bureau of Statistics. Although per capita GDP is five times the per capita GDP of Africa's poorest countries, the majority of Namibia's people live in rural areas and have a subsistence way of life.

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Namibia has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world, due in part to the fact that there is an urban economy and a more rural cashless economy. The inequality figures thus take into account people who do not actually rely on the formal economy for their survival. Although arable land accounts for one percent of Namibia, nearly half of the population is employed in agriculture.

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White commercial farmers own almost half of Namibia’s arable land. The United Kingdom offered about $180 million in 2004 to help finance Namibia's land reform process, as Namibia plans to start expropriating land from White farmers to resettle landless Black Namibians. Germany has offer in 2021 over 30 years in reparations for the genocides in the early 20th century but the money will go towards infrastructure, healthcare, and training programs not land reform. An agreement has been reached on the privatization of several more enterprises in coming years, with hopes that this will stimulate much needed foreign investment, but reinvestment of environmentally derived capital has hobbled Namibian per capita income.  One of the fastest growing areas of economic development in Namibia is the growth of wildlife conservancies. These are particularly important to the rural, generally unemployed, population.

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Mining and electricity

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Namibia is the fourth largest exporter of non-fuel minerals in Africa and the world's fourth largest producer of uranium. Rich alluvial diamond deposits make Namibia a primary source for gem-quality diamonds. While Namibia is known predominantly for its gem diamond and uranium deposits, a number of other minerals are extracted industrially such as lead, tungsten, gold, tin, fluorspar, manganese, marble, copper and zinc.

 

According to The Diamond Investigation, a book about the global diamond market, from 1978, De Beers, the largest diamond company, bought most of the Namibian diamonds, and would continue to do so, because "whatever government eventually comes to power they will need this revenue to survive."

 

Although much of the world's diamond supply comes from what have been called African blood diamonds, Namibia has managed to develop a diamond mining industry largely free of the kinds of conflict, extortion, and murder that have plagued many other African nations. This has been attributed to political dynamics, economic institutions, grievances, political geography, and the effects of neighborhoods, and is the result of a joint agree- ment between the government and De Beers that has led to a taxable base, strengthening state institutions.

 

The Namibian government has also discovered oil and gas in the Kavango Basin, which stretches across portions of Namibia and Botswana. Canadian petroleum giant Recon-Africa will begin a multi-well drilling operation in the first quarter of 2022 in the basin and is looking for partners to develop fields there.

 

Tourism

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The COVID pandemic notwithstanding, tourism accounts for 14.5 percent of Namibia's GDP, creating 18.2 per- cent of all employment directly or indirectly and servicing more than one million tourists per year. The country is a prime destination in Africa and is known for eco-tourism, which features Namibia's extensive wildlife. How- ever, while COVID is a still a major global problem, it will weigh heavily on Namibia’s tourism market. But, in more

normal times, there are many lodges and reserves to accommodate eco-tourists. Sport and trophy hunting is also a large and growing component of the Namibian economy, accounting for 14 percent of total tourism in the year 2000 or US$19.6 million, with Namibia boasting numerous species sought after by international sport hunters.

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In addition, extreme sports such as sand-boarding, skydiving and 4x4-wheel off-road driving have become popular, and many cities have companies that provide tours. The most visited places include the capital city of Windhoek, Caprivi Strip, Fish River Canyon, Sossusvlei, the Skeleton Coast Park, Sesriem, Etosha Pan and the coastal towns of Swakopmund, Walvis Bay, and Lüderitz.

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Windhoek plays a very important role in Namibia's tourism due to its central location and close proximity to Hosea Kutako International Airport. According to The Namibia Tourism Exit Survey, which was produced by the Millen- nium Challenge Corporation for the Namibian Directorate of Tourism, 56 percent of all tourists visiting Namibia in 2012-13 visited Windhoek.

 

Many of Namibia's tourism related parastatals and governing bodies such as Namibia Wildlife Resorts and the Namibia Tourism Board as well as Namibia's tourism-related trade associations such as the Hospitality Associa- tion of Namibia are headquartered in Windhoek. There are also a number of notable hotels in Windhoek, such as Windhoek Country Club Resort, and some international hotel chains, like Hilton Hotels and Resorts. Namibia’s primary tourism related governing body, the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB), was established by an Act of Parliament: the Namibia Tourism Board Act, 2000 (Act 21 of 2000). Its primary objectives are to regulate the tourism industry and to market Namibia as a tourist destination.

 

There are also a number of trade associations that represent the tourism sector in Namibia, such as the Federation of Namibia Tourism Associations (the umbrella body for all tourism associations in Namibia), the Hospitality Association of Namibia, the Association of Namibian Travel Agents, Car Rental Association of Namibia and the Tour and Safari Association of Namibia.

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Ethnic groups

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The majority of the Namibian population is of Bantu-speaking origin—mostly of the Ovambo ethnicity, which forms about half of the population—residing mainly in the north of the country, although many are now resident in towns throughout Namibia. Other ethnic groups are the Herero and Himba people, who speak a similar language, and the Damara, who, like the Nama, speak Khoekhoe.

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In addition to the Bantu majority, there are large groups of Khoisan (such as Nama and San), who are descendants of the original inhabitants of Southern Africa. The country also contains some descendants of refugees from Angola. There are also two smaller groups of people with mixed racial origins, called “Coloreds” and “Basters,” who together make up 8.0 percent (with the Coloreds outnumbering the Basters 2-1). There is a substantial Chinese minority in Namibia; it stood at 40,000 in 2006.

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Whites (mainly of Afrikaner, German, British and Portuguese origin) makeup 4-7 percent of the population. Although their proportion of the population decreased after independence due to emigration and lower birth rates, they still form the second-largest population of European ancestry, both in terms of percentage and actual num- bers, after South Africa. The majority of Namibian Whites and nearly all those who are of mixed race speak Afrikaans and share similar origins, culture, and religion as the White and Colored populations of South Africa.

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A large minority of Whites, more than 30,000, trace their family origins back to the German settlers who colonized Namibia prior to the British confiscation of German lands after World War I, and they maintain German cultural and educational institutions. Nearly all Portuguese settlers came to the country from the former Portuguese colony of Angola. The 1960 census reported 526,004 persons in what was then South West Africa, including 73,464 Whites or 14 percent of the population. The current population of Namibia is 2.5 million. The population of its largest city, Windhoek is 268,132.

 

Religion

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The Christian community makes up 80-90 percent of Namibia, with 75 percent, Protestant, of which 50 percent are Lutheran; a legacy of the German and Finnish missionary work during the country's colonial times. Namibia’s indigenous people constitute 10-20 percent of the population. Missionary activities during the second half of the 19th century accounted for the high Lutheran numbers. But Namibians today also comprised Roman Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, African Methodist Episcopal, and Dutch Reformed.

 

Islam in Namibia constitutes roughly 9,000 people, many of whom are Nama. Namibia also is home to a small Jewish community of about 100 people.

 

Education

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Namibia has free education for both primary and secondary education levels. Grades 1-7 are primary level, grades 8-12 are secondary. In 1998, there were 400,325 Namibian students in primary school and 115,237 students in secondary schools. The pupil-teacher ratio in 1999 was estimated at 32-to-1, with about 8 percent of the GDP being spent on education. Curriculum development, educational research, and professional develop- ment of teachers is centrally organized by the National Institute for Educational Development in Okahandja.

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Most schools in Namibia are state-run, but there are some private schools, which are also part of the country's education system. There are four teacher training universities, three colleges of agriculture, a police training college, and three universities: University of Namibia (UNAM), International University of Management (IUM) and Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). Namibia was ranked 104th in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, down from 101st in 2019.

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Languages

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Up to 1990, English, German, and Afrikaans were official languages. Long before Namibia's independence from South Africa, SWAPO was of the opinion that the country should become officially monolingual, choosing this approach in contrast to that of its neighbor South Africa (which granted all 11 of its major languages official status), which it saw as "a deliberate policy of ethno-linguistic fragmentation."

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Consequently, SWAPO instituted English as Namibia's sole official language, though only about 3 percent of the population speaks it as a home language. Its implementation is focused on the civil service, education and the broadcasting system, especially the state broadcaster NBC. Some other languages have received semi-official recognition by being allowed as medium of instruction in primary schools. Private schools are expected to follow the same policy as state schools, and "English language" is a compulsory subject. Some critics argue that, as in other post-colonial African societies, the push for monolingual instruction and policy has resulted in a high rate of school drop-outs and of individuals whose academic competence in any language is low.

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The most common languages are Oshiwambo, the most spoken language for 49 percent of households; Khoekhoegowab, 11.3 percent; Afrikaans, 10.4 percent; RuKwangali, 9 percent; and Otjiherero, 9 percent. The most widely understood national language is Afrikaans, the country's lingua franca. Both Afrikaans and English are used primarily as a second language reserved for public communication. Most of the White population speaks either German or Afrikaans.

 

In 2022, German plays a role as a commercial language. Afrikaans is spoken by 60 percent of the White popula- tion, German by 32 percent, English by 7 percent, and Portuguese by 4 percent. Geographical proximity to Portuguese-speaking Angola explains the relatively high number of Portuguese speakers. In 2011 these were estimated to be 100,000, or 4-5 percent of the total population.

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Sport

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The most popular sport in Namibia is association football. The Namibia national football team qualified for the 1998, 2008 and 2019 editions of the Africa Cup of Nations, but has yet to qualify for the World Cup. The most successful national team is the Namibian rugby team, having competed in six separate World Cups. Namibia were participants in the 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups. 

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Cricket is also popular, with the national side having qualified for 2003 Cricket World Cup, 2021 ICC T20 World Cup and 2022 ICC Men's T20 World Cup. In December 2017, Namibia Cricket reached the final of the Cricket South Africa (CSA) Provincial One Day Challenge for the first time. In February 2018 Namibia hosted the ICC World Cricket League Division 2 with Namibia, Kenya, UAE, Nepal, Canada, and Oman to compete for the final two ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier positions in Zimbabwe. Namibia also qualified the qualifiers of ICC T20 World Cup 2021 and entered the super 12 club.

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The most famous athlete from Namibia is track and field star Frankie Fredericks, a sprinter in the 100 and 200 meter events. He won four Olympic silver medals (1992, 1996) and also won medals from several World Athletics Championships. 

 

Golfer Trevor Dodds won the Greater Greensboro Open in 1998, one of 15 tournaments in his career. He achieved a career-high world ranking of 78th in 1998. Professional cyclist and Namibian Road Race champion Dan Craven represented Namibia at the 2016 Summer Olympics in both the road race and individual time trial.

 

Boxer Julius Indongo is the unified WBA, IBF, and IBO world champion in the Light welterweight division. Another famous athlete from Namibia is ex-professional rugby player Jacques Burger. Burger competed for Saracens and Aurillac in Europe.

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Media

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Although Namibia's population is fairly small, the country has a diverse choice of media; two TV stations, 19 radio stations (without counting community stations), five daily newspapers, several weeklies and special publications compete for the attention of the audience. Additionally, a mentionable amount of foreign media, especially South African, is available. Online media are mostly based on print content. Namibia also runs a state-owned Press Agency, the Namibia Press Agency (NAMPA), establish in 1991. 

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Radio was introduced in 1969, TV in 1981. The broadcasting sector today is dominated by the state-run Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). The public broadcaster offers a TV station as well as a "National Radio" in English and nine language services in locally spoken languages. The nine private radio stations in the country are mainly English-language channels, except for Radio Omulunga (Oshiwambo) and Kosmos 94.1 (Afrikaans). Privately held One Africa TV has competed with NBC since the 2000s.

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Compared to neighboring countries, Namibia has a large degree of media freedom. Over the past years, the country usually ranked in the upper quarter of the Press Freedom Index of Reporters without Borders, reaching position 21 in 2010, being on par with Canada and the best-positioned African country. Media and journalists in Namibia are represented by the Namibian chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa and the Editors' Forum of Namibia. An independent media ombudsman was appointed in 2009 to prevent a state-controlled media council.

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Jarrette Fellows, Jr. / Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License 

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