Research Hub
Sectors
The story of each sector, with its regulators, companies and key events.
Agriculture
Namibia is the most arid country south of the Sahara Desert with low average and highly variable rainfall. Drought is always a possibility and the lack of water is an ever-present constraint in most parts of the country. This climate means that the potential for arable agriculture is generally limited to the north of the country where water is less scarce. In the central regions agricultural potential is confined mainly to livestock farming while in the more arid south only extensive livestock farming is possible without irrigation. To this harsh environment come the additional challenges associated with climate change.
Explore sectorFishing
Namibia has one of the most productive fishing grounds in the world, located in the central region of the Benguela system with a coastline stretching for 1,572 kilometres from the Orange River in the south to the Kunene River in the north. The Benguela current system is one of four eastern boundary upwelling systems in the world and directly influences the productivity of Namibia’s waters. South easterly winds drive coastal upwelling, forming the Benguela Upwelling system. The cold nutrient-rich waters that upwell from around 200-300 metre depths fuel high rates of phytoplankton growth and sustain the productive Benguela ecosystem. As a result, waters within Namibia’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone are characterised by a high degree of biological productivity. Thanks to these conditions Namibia ranked as the fifth largest African capture fisheries nation by tonnage in 2016 after Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Mauritania and 36th in the world according to the most recent data from the World Bank with marine landings averaging about 475,000 tonnes.
Explore sectorMining
It is no exaggeration to say that Namibia’s economy has been built on its mining industry. According to Dr Gabriella Schneider’s history of mining in Namibia, the oldest written accounts of Namibia’s mineral resources can be found in the diaries of Hendrik Hop who travelled to southern Namibia as early as 1761. In 1790 Wilhelmus van Reenen arrived at modern-day Rehoboth and found copper and gold. The Walvisch Bay Mining Company established a copper mining operation at Matchless Mine west of Windhoek in 1856. However, Namibia only really established itself on the global mining stage following the commencement of copper mining in the Otavi mountains by the Otavi Minen und Eisenbahn Gesellschaft in 1906 which was followed by the spectacular discovery of diamonds at Kolmanskop near Lüderitz on the southern coast in 1908. Since then, Namibia has gone on to become a major producer of diamonds and uranium and also produces gold, copper, zinc, and lead as well as a range of industrial minerals and dimension stone. In 2024 Namibia was the sixth largest producer of diamonds by value and the third largest producer of uranium by volume. The industry is dominated by large mining companies and has only a very small artisanal mining sector.
Explore sectorDiamonds
Diamond mining has formed an extremely important part of Namibia’s economy ever since the discovery of the first gem quality diamonds near Kolmanskop in 1908. Over the past decades Namibia has ranked as one of the top ten diamond mining producing countries in the world with the highest value per carat by a wide margin. According to figures produced by the Kimberley Process, in 2025 Namibia was the eighth largest rough diamond producing country in the world by carats and the fifth largest by value. When measured by average value, the quality of Namibia’s rough diamonds is exceptionally high compared to other countries.
Explore sectorManufacturing
Historically, Namibia’s small domestic market and membership of the Southern African Customs Union, which means it is fully exposed to South Africa’s larger and better established manufacturing industry, has pointed to the need for special measures to be taken to stimulate the domestic manufacturing sector. Over the years a variety of measures have been adopted to compensate for this with varying degrees of success.
Explore sectorConstruction
Namibia’s construction sector consists of a wide range of companies from small informal one-person operations to large multi-national companies. In principle, barriers to entry are low and the sector is open to competition from outside Namibia. The industry is focused on meeting domestic demand and therefore dependent on levels of private and public investment in buildings and construction work. Given the disproportionate size of Namibia’s public sector, the industry is highly dependent on central, regional, and local government as well as the large public enterprise sector for business. This means the state of the public finances are an important driver of demand and the efficiency and fairness of the public tendering process critical in determining which companies get which contracts.
Explore sectorElectricity
Historically, Namibia has depended on importing electricity from South Africa and the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) given domestic generating capacity has been limited to the Ruacana hydroelectric power station in the north-west, the Van Eck coal-fired power station in Windhoek, and the Anixas and Paratus diesel power stations at Walvis Bay. Following the adoption of the Renewable Feed-In Tariff programme (REFIT) in 2015, these generating sources have been supplemented by 14 Independent Power Producers (IPPs) all but one of which are based on solar PV with one (in Lüderitz) based on wind. However, despite these additions, Namibia remains highly dependent on imported electricity from South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, countries which themselves are facing shortages of generating capacity.
Explore sectorWater
Namibia is the most arid country south of the Sahara and a large part of its population is engaged in agriculture. Water is therefore always a challenge and also a highly political issue. This is exacerbated due to the fact that much of the population is concentrated in areas far from where sufficient water is naturally available. Many farmers use their own boreholes as their main source of water supply.
Explore sectorTourism
Namibia is a large, sparsely populated and beautiful country blessed with breath-taking landscapes and abundant wildlife including Africa’s Big Five and cheetahs which form the basis of a diverse and innovative tourist industry. This industry caters to a wide variety of tastes from high-end fly-in safari tourism to self-drive tourists and backpackers. Namibia has 20 state-run protected areas covering about 18% of the country’s land area including three trans-frontier parks. Prior to Covid in 2019, Namibia attracted almost 1.6 million tourists, 1.2 million from Africa (mostly Angola and South Africa), 256,000 from Europe, and 89,000 from the rest of the world.
Explore sectorTransport
With its two ports, excellent roads and strategic location, Namibia is seeking to position itself as a gateway to Southern Africa. There is a thriving private transport sector, especially in road and air and to a limited extent in rail, but public enterprises play a key role in determining the overall performance of the sector.
Explore sectorICT
At a policy level, Namibia has always recognised the importance of ICT and has rapidly adopted new mobile telecoms and other technology. Two commercial public enterprises play a key role in the sector but there are up-and-coming private players too.
Explore sectorBanking
Namibia hosts a modern, technologically sophisticated, relatively low-risk and highly profitable banking system led by private sector companies with links to other countries in the region. They offer a wide variety of services to retail and corporate clients including mortgages for residential and commercial property.
Explore sectorSpecial issues
Oil and Gas
Since Independence, Government policy in Namibia has sought to encourage exploration for commercial deposits of oil and gas both off and onshore. The new Upstream Petroleum Unit in the Office of the President headed by Kornelia Shilunga and the Ministry of Industrialisation, Mines and Energy through the Directorate of Petroleum Affairs (currently headed by Maggy Shino) oversee policy and regulation towards the sector whilst the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia, a commercial public enterprise under the Ministry of Industrialisation, Mines and Energy, formed out of the old pre-Independence Swakor, is the Namibian State’s active participant in it. The Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act and the Petroleum (Taxation) Act became law as early as 1991 and with a few amendments continue to form the basis of Namibia’s policy and regulatory framework towards the sector.
Explore sectorGreen Hydrogen
Namibia’s ambitions to become a leader in green hydrogen were first laid out in the Harambee Prosperity Plan II launched by President Geingob on 18 March 2021. The plan highlighted the Southern Corridor Development Initiative (SCDI) within Namibia’s Tsau //Khaeb or Sperrgebiet in the far south of the country. Namibia’s green hydrogen plans are overseen by its Green Hydrogen Council chaired by the Director General of the National Planning Commission and Green Hydrogen Commissioner James Mnyupe. On 4 November 2022 Namibia launched its Green Hydrogen Strategy and went on to establish the Implementation Authority Office (IAO) to streamline and oversee green hydrogen developments.
Explore sectorIn collaboration with Robin Sherbourne.