IPPR Namibia

If you would like to attend the Critical Minerals conference taking place in Swakopmund next Tuesday (22 September), please RSVP to [email protected] before close of business on Friday (18 September) to ensure your place is reserved.

Namibia’s critical minerals could bring major new investment and opportunities – but how can communities have a real say and share in the benefits?

As interest in Namibia’s critical minerals grows, important questions need to be addressed. How should communities be consulted? How can local people participate effectively in decisions? What should happen when mining affects land and livelihoods? And how can benefits extend beyond the mine itself to jobs, skills and local development?

Join us in Swakopmund for Critical Minerals: Strengthening Public Engagement, a public conference which will explore community participation, land access, local development alongside questions of transparency, accountability and good governance in the minerals sector.

We’ll also discuss how communities and civil society can participate more effectively and ensure that the information needed to hold decision-makers and companies accountable is publicly available.

📅 Tuesday, 22 September 2026
🕘 09h00–16h30
📍 The MTC Dome, Swakopmund

All are welcome.

RSVP: [email protected]

Funded by the Delegation of the European Union to Namibia

Organised by the Eco Dialogue Collective consisting of DW Akademie, the NMT Media Foundation, the Legal Assistance Centre Namibia and the IPPR

IPPR Executive Director Graham Hopwood will be speaking at the African Green Industries Summit 2026 in Swakopmund this week.

On Thursday afternoon, he will take part in the session “ESG in Action: Ensuring Communities Benefit from Africa’s Green Transition.”

As Namibia and other African countries seek to capitalise on opportunities in renewable energy and green industries, an important question is how local communities can share meaningfully in the benefits. The session will explore how ESG principles can be translated into practical approaches that promote community participation, local economic opportunities and more equitable outcomes.

We look forward to contributing to this important discussion on ensuring that Africa’s green transition delivers benefits not only for investors and national economies, but also for the communities most directly affected.

🎉 Celebrating 11 years at the IPPR!

The Namibian Sun profiles our colleague Martha Nangolo and her journey as an economist and public policy researcher. Martha reflects on the importance of perseverance, continuous learning, mentorship and using research to better understand the challenges facing society.
Congratulations, Martha, on this milestone – and thank you for your immensely valuable contribution to the IPPR!

Read the full story below 👇

Martha Nangolo celebrates 11 years at IPPR Martha Nangolo’s career has unfolded with steady progress, beginning with her early curiosity about society and leading to her role as a respected economist and public policy...

This blog, written after the first Fisheries Indaba in May, remains just as relevant as the second Indaba gets underway. Unfortunately, the agenda for this Indaba shows little sign of seriously confronting the governance problems afflicting the sector. The IPPR offered to participate and present on the industry’s pressing transparency and accountability challenges at the Indaba, but this offer was not taken up by the organisers.

https://ippr.org.na/blog/fishrot-showed-us-what-happens-in-the-dark-its-time-to-switch-on-the-lights/

Fishrot Showed Us What Happens in the Dark. It’s Time to Switch on the Lights - IPPR The recent high-level engagement with the fishing industry in Walvis Bay was welcome – although long overdue. Unfortunately, judging from the speeches and contributions that have since been made public – as the meeting itself was closed to the public and civil society – the opportunity to conf...

Speaking at the Pre-Event Panel Discussions for the 2026 National Fisheries Indaba, IPPR Executive Director Graham Hopwood argued that three relatively simple actions could be taken quickly to reform Namibia’s fisheries sector:

1️⃣ End the secrecy – publish details of all fishing rights and quota holders, including beneficial ownership information.

2️⃣ Reduce ministerial discretion – amend the Marine Resources Act to remove the Minister’s discretionary power over quota allocations.

3️⃣ Join the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) – the global standard for transparency and accountability in fisheries.

Namibia does not need a drawn-out Indaba process to start cleaning up the fishing industry. What is needed is political will and determined action at the top.

The longer meaningful reform is delayed, the greater the risk that corruption becomes further embedded in the sector, including within the institutions responsible for managing it.

At the National Upstream Petroleum Local Content Policy Validation Workshop this week, IPPR Executive Director Graham Hopwood stressed that the policy will only gain public confidence and trust if it is underpinned by a high level of transparency.
While transparency is referenced in the policy, this needs to be clearer and more consistent. In practice, this should mean making the supplier registry, beneficial ownership database and local content performance and compliance data publicly available.
The default should be disclosure. Where information is withheld, there should be a clear and publicly understandable reason for doing so.
Such an approach would be in keeping with both the spirit and the letter of Namibia’s Access to Information Act.
The policy, which has been approved in principle by Cabinet, will now be sent to the National Planning Commission for publication.

IPPR Research Associate Frederico Links presented findings from the recent IPPR paper, Closing the Gaps: Political Finance in Namibia, at a stakeholder consultation on political party and campaign financing transparency and integrity held at the Parliament Building in Windhoek.

Organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the consultation brought together key stakeholders to discuss how Namibia can strengthen transparency, accountability and oversight in political party and campaign financing.

The IPPR paper highlights weaknesses in Namibia’s current political finance framework and proposes reforms aimed at improving disclosure, oversight and accountability.

Read the paper: https://ippr.org.na/publication/closing-the-gaps-political-party-finance/