By Dhiladhila Magazine · Issue 02
A small economy flattened by COVID needs growth from somewhere. HPP II bets on better curation of what Namibia already owns.
At State House on 18 March 2021, President Hage Geingob launched the second Harambee Prosperity Plan into an economy the pandemic had shrunk. The document is unusual for a recovery plan: rather than promise new industries, it proposes to earn more from resources Namibia already holds. Geingob framed HPP II as a way to restart growth and create jobs without waiting for the world to reopen.
The headline arithmetic is deliberately concrete. A N$400 million Project Preparation Fund (about US$27 million) is meant to ready a pipeline of ventures worth an estimated N$27.7 billion and, on the plan’s own figures, more than 42,000 jobs. The bet is that preparation, not proclamation, is what has been missing.
Recovery without a new engine
Namibia entered 2021 as a small open economy that the pandemic and a long drought had pushed into recession. HPP II reads that position honestly. It calls itself a targeted plan rather than a comprehensive one, choosing a short list of measurable actions over a wish-list, on the reasoning that a shrunken treasury cannot fund everything and should fund the few things that move output soonest.
That is a particular theory of recovery. Instead of announcing a new sector to carry the economy, the plan concentrates on getting more value from mining, fishing, agriculture and public assets that already exist. Growth, in this reading, is less about invention than about administration done better.
The plan’s wager is that Namibia grows fastest by managing what it has, not by conjuring what it lacks.
Curating the resource base
The clearest expression of that idea sits in the Economic Advancement pillar, which puts natural-resource stewardship first. The plan proposes a sovereign wealth fund to bank resource income, a review of how fishing rights, quotas and mineral licences are allocated, and an updated register of public assets. Each is an attempt to capture value that has leaked out of loosely governed systems.
The logic is that Namibia has often sold access cheaply and banked the proceeds poorly. A licence regime that priced rights properly, and a fund that saved the windfall, would lift national income without a single new mine or vessel. It is macro policy as better book-keeping.
Tighter control of licences and rents is treated as a growth lever in its own right.
A pipeline, not a promise
The N$27.7 billion figure is a pipeline of investable projects rather than committed spending, and the distinction matters for any market reader. The Project Preparation Fund exists precisely because good ideas stall for want of feasibility studies, bankable documents and cleared approvals. Money spent readying projects is meant to turn a list of intentions into deals investors can actually price.
Read as macro strategy, this is an attempt to fix a market failure at the top of the funnel. If the state can de-risk the early stage, private and development capital is far more likely to fund the build. The measure of success is how much of that N$27.7 billion converts into signed investment rather than staying a target.
The plan spends public money early so that private money will commit later.
Where the growth has to come from
Beyond stewardship, the plan names complementary engines: a green and blue economy, a feasibility study into green hydrogen and ammonia, and incentives to draw foreign direct investment. These are longer-dated bets, and the plan is careful to file them as prospects to investigate rather than guaranteed output within its 2021 to 2025 window.
For a market analyst, that restraint is the notable feature. HPP II does not forecast a boom; it lays out conditions under which one might start. The near-term growth it can credibly claim rests on resource governance and a prepared project pipeline, with the newer sectors offered as upside rather than base case.
Green hydrogen is filed as upside; the base case is better-governed resources.
For an investor or executive reading Namibia in 2021, HPP II is less a stimulus than a signal about where returns will be curated: in resource rents, licence reform and a prepared project pipeline. The decision it poses is whether to position now for the deals the Project Preparation Fund is meant to ready, or to wait and see how much of the N$27.7 billion becomes real.
Sources: The Namibian; HPP II targets projects worth N$27 billion (Namibia Economist); Inside HPP II – Pillar Two: Economic Advancement (New Era)
