Taking stock of Harambee’s progress, Part 1
Economic advancement pillar
James Mnyupe, economic advisor of Pres Hage Geingob and Namibia's first green hydrogen commissioner, reflects on the advancement of the country's plans to become a significant player in the global renewable energy market.
James Mnyupe - A year ago to the date, His Excellency Hage G. Geingob launched the 2nd Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPPII) at State House. This manifesto for his second term in office contained a deliberate focus on an urgent and dynamic social-economic recovery plan.
Good governance remains the core of the plan while the economic advancement pillar, the infrastructure pillar and the international relations pillars bears the brunt of the responsibility to drive an urgent economic recovery with a trying macro-economic backdrop. The social progression pillar is the pivotal safety net that aspires to take all Namibians along on the journey to and shared prosperity in an industrialised Namibia with Vision 2030 firmly remaining the guiding lighthouse.
Arguably, the most controversial suggestion in HPPII was that Namibia should embark on exploring the synthetic fuels industry as an idiosyncratic spark that could light up a whole new industry, which could catalyse Namibia’s aspiration to grow the secondary sector of the economy instead of continuing to rely on the primary and extractive industries that to date have borne most of the economic development brunt.
So a year on, what progress has been made with Goal 3, activity 2 of the Economic Advancement Pillar?
This activity had 5 sub-activities which needed to be pursued diligently for the strategic bet to yield the desired results. The ultimate goal was to kick starting a dearth of much needed investments, with a promise to unlock prospects for new employment, gross fixed capital formation and improve our next exports position.
STEP BY STEP
The first sub activity was the formal establishment of the inter-ministerial Green Hydrogen Council, which was executed by July 2022, which went on to develop a terms of reference for the Green Hydrogen Strategy and crafted the vision of the Southern Corridor Development Initiative, meeting the 2nd and 3rd sub-activity.
The feasibility study was the 4th sub-activity and was packaged as a key requirement for a request for proposal (RFP/tender). Here government demonstrated their willingness to work with private sector to pursue a national priority, living up to the ethos captured throughout the second pillar, that of allow the economic recovery to be private sector led.
The last of the 5 sub-activities entailed a coordinated deployment of green diplomacy to unlock support and concessionary funding from various strategic partners at an international level.
The result of these efforts has surprised even government expectations.
Namibia is now hailed as a visionary and strategic enabler in an industry that GoldmanSachs estimates will unlock “US$5.0 trillion of cumulative investments in the clean hydrogen supply chain ... while the TAM (total addressable market) for hydrogen generation alone has the potential to double by 2030E (to US$250 bn) and reach >US$1 tn by 2050Ee next 20 years”.
UNLOCKING INVESTMENT
By August 2021 the Namibian government unlocked €40 million which was to be deployed to support the goals of the activity 2 of goal 3, namely develop a national green hydrogen strategy, fund various feasibility studies and get some pilot plants deployed in Namibia as soon as possible.
Government with its strategic partner, the ministry of education and research from Germany, also recognised the need to allocate some funding for the development of a scholarship programme which is to start a comprehensive effort to build the intellectual capacity and skills needed for Namibia to deliver on this ambition and capture as much of the value chain of this burgeoning new industry as possible.
This programme was launched in March 2022 and applications for pilot projects have been allocated €30 million, calls for the crafting of the strategy and accompanying studies have been allocated €5 million while the five-year scholarship programme has been allocated €5 million.
All this was done in less than 12 months after the state conceived an idea that many expected to only unlock benefit to the Namibian economy 5 to 10 years from 2021.
However, this was merely the tip of the iceberg.
The RFP resulted in Namibia receiving nine offers from six global, regional and local developers by September 2022.
Read Part 2 of the article in tomorrow's Market Watch.
Good governance remains the core of the plan while the economic advancement pillar, the infrastructure pillar and the international relations pillars bears the brunt of the responsibility to drive an urgent economic recovery with a trying macro-economic backdrop. The social progression pillar is the pivotal safety net that aspires to take all Namibians along on the journey to and shared prosperity in an industrialised Namibia with Vision 2030 firmly remaining the guiding lighthouse.
Arguably, the most controversial suggestion in HPPII was that Namibia should embark on exploring the synthetic fuels industry as an idiosyncratic spark that could light up a whole new industry, which could catalyse Namibia’s aspiration to grow the secondary sector of the economy instead of continuing to rely on the primary and extractive industries that to date have borne most of the economic development brunt.
So a year on, what progress has been made with Goal 3, activity 2 of the Economic Advancement Pillar?
This activity had 5 sub-activities which needed to be pursued diligently for the strategic bet to yield the desired results. The ultimate goal was to kick starting a dearth of much needed investments, with a promise to unlock prospects for new employment, gross fixed capital formation and improve our next exports position.
STEP BY STEP
The first sub activity was the formal establishment of the inter-ministerial Green Hydrogen Council, which was executed by July 2022, which went on to develop a terms of reference for the Green Hydrogen Strategy and crafted the vision of the Southern Corridor Development Initiative, meeting the 2nd and 3rd sub-activity.
The feasibility study was the 4th sub-activity and was packaged as a key requirement for a request for proposal (RFP/tender). Here government demonstrated their willingness to work with private sector to pursue a national priority, living up to the ethos captured throughout the second pillar, that of allow the economic recovery to be private sector led.
The last of the 5 sub-activities entailed a coordinated deployment of green diplomacy to unlock support and concessionary funding from various strategic partners at an international level.
The result of these efforts has surprised even government expectations.
Namibia is now hailed as a visionary and strategic enabler in an industry that GoldmanSachs estimates will unlock “US$5.0 trillion of cumulative investments in the clean hydrogen supply chain ... while the TAM (total addressable market) for hydrogen generation alone has the potential to double by 2030E (to US$250 bn) and reach >US$1 tn by 2050Ee next 20 years”.
UNLOCKING INVESTMENT
By August 2021 the Namibian government unlocked €40 million which was to be deployed to support the goals of the activity 2 of goal 3, namely develop a national green hydrogen strategy, fund various feasibility studies and get some pilot plants deployed in Namibia as soon as possible.
Government with its strategic partner, the ministry of education and research from Germany, also recognised the need to allocate some funding for the development of a scholarship programme which is to start a comprehensive effort to build the intellectual capacity and skills needed for Namibia to deliver on this ambition and capture as much of the value chain of this burgeoning new industry as possible.
This programme was launched in March 2022 and applications for pilot projects have been allocated €30 million, calls for the crafting of the strategy and accompanying studies have been allocated €5 million while the five-year scholarship programme has been allocated €5 million.
All this was done in less than 12 months after the state conceived an idea that many expected to only unlock benefit to the Namibian economy 5 to 10 years from 2021.
However, this was merely the tip of the iceberg.
The RFP resulted in Namibia receiving nine offers from six global, regional and local developers by September 2022.
Read Part 2 of the article in tomorrow's Market Watch.
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