An asssessment of development aid to Namibia
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2007
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This paper presents an empirical exploration and analysis of the economic and policy impact of development aid to Namibia since independence 1990. Namibia has been receiving a large amount of economic and humanitarian aid, in the form of financial, technical and material support from both bilateral and multilateral development co-operation partners with a common objective to promote good governance, economic growth and reducing poverty. International aid did not came as a surprise, the independence of Namibia came as a result of an international peace settlement and a large number of nations promised to help Namibia in her process of social and economic development, right from the day of independence. As a result a donor roundtable conference for Namibia was held in Geneva in 1995, and the prepared background document on Namibia's development needs and priorities was adopted as the First National Development Plan (NDP1) for Namibia by the post independence government and covered the period from 1990-2000. Development assistance to Namibia was based on this and the subsequent Second National Development Plan (NDP2) for Namibia covering the period from 2001/2002 to 2005/2006
However, a large amount of development aid to Namibia was disbursed outside the government's state revenue fund in the form of free standing technical assistance. A significant amount of aid was channeled as budgetary or balance of payment support, but huge chunk of aid went to the social sectors mainly to education, health and sanitation, housing, water and electricity, infrastructure development and to the transport sector
The main aim of development assistance to developing countries and to Namibia in particular is to help boost the country's capacity for economic development, to achieve sustained economic growth and to reduce poverty, unemployment and income inequality. Much of development aid to Namibia took the form of human and institutional capacity building through technical and financial support in the area of education, institutional capacity building and policy reforms. This paper is the first academic research to be undertaken on the impact of development aid to Namibia at macro-level by focusing on the main socio-economic policies and indicators for development. The objective is to measure the significance and effectiveness of development aid in boosting Namibia's economic growth, employment, reducing income inequality and poverty
The study came out of curiosity to determine the level of development assistance to Namibia and, understand its policy and economic impact. The central question that guided this research can be stated as follow: To what extent has development aid been significant to Namibia's economic growth and poverty reduction? This study can be described as descriptive and analytical in nature
The major findings are that development aid though constitutes a small mount of domestic resources it proved to have been of significant importance to Namibia's socio-economic development. Economic aid impact and significance is implicit at the macro-level of analysis (macroeconomic aggregates), but explicit and the micro-level of analysis (microeconomic) affirming the micro-macro paradoxes of economic aid impact on developing countries' economies.
This paper presents an empirical exploration and analysis of the economic and policy impact of development aid to Namibia since independence 1990. Namibia has been receiving a large amount of economic and humanitarian aid, in the form of financial, technical and material support from both bilateral and multilateral development co-operation partners with a common objective to promote good governance, economic growth and reducing poverty. International aid did not came as a surprise, the independence of Namibia came as a result of an international peace settlement and a large number of nations promised to help Namibia in her process of social and economic development, right from the day of independence. As a result a donor roundtable conference for Namibia was held in Geneva in 1995, and the prepared background document on Namibia's development needs and priorities was adopted as the First National Development Plan (NDP1) for Namibia by the post independence government and covered the period from 1990-2000. Development assistance to Namibia was based on this and the subsequent Second National Development Plan (NDP2) for Namibia covering the period from 2001/2002 to 2005/2006
However, a large amount of development aid to Namibia was disbursed outside the government's state revenue fund in the form of free standing technical assistance. A significant amount of aid was channeled as budgetary or balance of payment support, but huge chunk of aid went to the social sectors mainly to education, health and sanitation, housing, water and electricity, infrastructure development and to the transport sector
The main aim of development assistance to developing countries and to Namibia in particular is to help boost the country's capacity for economic development, to achieve sustained economic growth and to reduce poverty, unemployment and income inequality. Much of development aid to Namibia took the form of human and institutional capacity building through technical and financial support in the area of education, institutional capacity building and policy reforms. This paper is the first academic research to be undertaken on the impact of development aid to Namibia at macro-level by focusing on the main socio-economic policies and indicators for development. The objective is to measure the significance and effectiveness of development aid in boosting Namibia's economic growth, employment, reducing income inequality and poverty
The study came out of curiosity to determine the level of development assistance to Namibia and, understand its policy and economic impact. The central question that guided this research can be stated as follow: To what extent has development aid been significant to Namibia's economic growth and poverty reduction? This study can be described as descriptive and analytical in nature
The major findings are that development aid though constitutes a small mount of domestic resources it proved to have been of significant importance to Namibia's socio-economic development. Economic aid impact and significance is implicit at the macro-level of analysis (macroeconomic aggregates), but explicit and the micro-level of analysis (microeconomic) affirming the micro-macro paradoxes of economic aid impact on developing countries' economies.
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Economic development projects, Foreign investments