By Tio Nakasole
The year 2025 is inscribed as a watershed moment in history not only for Namibia but for the world at large. It kickstarts with superpowers, the United States and China, at loggerheads due to new tariff arrangements.
Presently, both reports released in April by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund cautioned of future tighter financial conditions and heightened economic policy uncertainty. Admittedly, these elevated risks and uncertainty stem from the recent geopolitical tensions, particularly larger-than-expected tariffs by the United States and retaliatory measures by other nations.
As the saying goes, “When two elephants fight, only the grass will suffer.” The AGOA alliances are feeling the pinch as they do not only rely on America for export, but to make the matter worse, the exportation of these resources is in raw form, which in return adds little value to the upliftment of domestic economies.
Lessons learned: no nation can sustain itself and its civilization without a right national innovation blueprint focused on guiding us to manage the vicissitudes and paradoxes of internal and external notoriety. Due to this great argumentation and economic rancor, it reveals that many states will be susceptible to stifling economic growth in the year 2025.
As a country with a national budget of 106.3 billion, how do we steadily get ready to capitalize on some of our tools in our toolbox to recalibrate and offset these predicaments? Among others, macroeconomic innovation and creative industries can be one of our grand strategies.
CONSTELLATION OF LEADING ECONOMIES
As a frame of reference, Singapore embarked on a journey of digital economy, smart cities, and sustainable infrastructure; South Korea dove into the space of advanced manufacturing, AI, and robotics; Germany has been the guarantor of the fourth industrialization and green energy; and the United States has championed the aerospace industry.
Over the past years, economists have indicated that fifty percent of the United States’ annual economic growth has been attributed to increases in innovation. With a skyrocketing number of youth unemployed, doing nothing in the creative and innovative industry will be a monumental mistake in a small population country like Namibia.
One may think that “we will never be able to produce better automobiles than Germany or better electronics than Japan” and then give up there, but with the right attitude of the great economist David Ricardo, there will always be something that each country can make that people within the nation and even people in other countries will want to buy. As a matter of principle, no person and no country can make everything, and additionally, human beings have limited needs, but they have unlimited wants, so they will always be seeking additional products.
The question will be who will service this untapped market. Definitely, there will always be some goods or services of value that a country like Namibia can create profitably, and that is what is needed momentarily to boost the national economy of a country like Namibia, whose main drivers of the economy are the mining industries, which are risky due to commodity price volatility.
STONE AGE
The evolution of innovation in Namibia began in the precolonial era of the nineteenth century. During that time, innovation and creativity were mainly expressed through indigenous technologies, craftsmanship, leatherwork, pottery, traditional medicine, and leatherwork and clothing. This creative and innovative group was hugely respected for their survival and for barter trade to individuals in affording what they can produce or make.
Thereafter, Namibia takes another center stage of dominating in beautiful stones, which Zackarias Lewala discovered on 14 April 1908, known as diamonds. Little did we know about him is about “a man who entered history but not much more; the man had nothing of his find, no one paid him for it or showed any kind of gratitude.”
From an elementary stage, the question is how the government, through the Ministry of Education, Sport, Youth, and Culture, can instill good teaching through a school curriculum in order to maximize both production capacity and innovation. In the pre- and post-twentieth century, China embarked on what is called production management, which catapulted production, and as a result, China is now among the global leaders in the economy.
As much as we had Vision 2030, which is a few years from now, scaling up on innovation and creative industries may be comparatively more arduous if lately taken seriously. Namibia needs to craft a long-term vision that is not only wild-sounding but also a journey and a dream to be lived by all.
DELUSIONAL
Most of the developing countries made peace with the fact that the many traditional products, such as arts and crafts, that they have produced and sold through the centuries have not been able to sustain their need for economic growth. Even if people in these countries already know how to make these things, if these traditional products were going to bring the country from the drift of poverty to the high height of prosperity, we could have already done so already. One would argue that there was not a sufficient demand for these products on the world market.
However, lack of demand strongly suggests that as a country, you must change what you are doing and pursue other opportunities. It is time to find other products for which people in other countries will be able to pay a good price.
A good example is Japan. The people of Japan had not “traditionally” worked in automobile manufacturing plants producing high-precision products using modern technology. Given its past geographical nature, many of them had been rural farmers. However, they abandoned their traditional occupations and learned to work in automobile factories. The same thing happened with electronics manufacturing in Taiwan. This nation began to thrive.
The question is not what a country has traditionally made, but what value addition to a product it can make for the local and world market. Since no two trees will ever be the same, we as a country do not need to drop the ball on certain sectors, but the government needs to have an agency that explores the nascent field of innovation and creative industries, in tandem ensuring the capacitation of local content in the emerging industries in the country.
In conclusion, in order for us to weather the storm of global economic fracturing, Namibia need to activate national innovation blueprint and its precepts to play its reliable part as the kingpin of the emerging industries.
As a result, this will create an environment where economies can grow sustainably, reduce inequality, and adapt to changing global conditions. In organic terms, Namibia needs to become mature in the area of innovation, creative space, and value addition to drive growth from within to sustain itself in perpetuity.
*Tio Nakasole is an analyst at MONASA Advisory and Associates.
The views expressed do not represent those of his employer. – theorastus@gmail.com.
