Niël Terblanché
The Ministry of Health and Social Services is hosting a week-long strategic planning workshop in Otjiwarongo.
The meeting started on Tuesday and is aimed at charting an enhanced course for public healthcare in Namibia over the next five years.
The health ministry’s executive director, Ben Nangombe, said the task requires urgency and full participation from all attendees during the opening of the workshop.
“We are here to plan, to analyse and to produce cogent documents that will guide our Ministry to deliver more, to deliver better, to deliver consistently, and to deliver effectively,” he said.
The workshop comes just days after the inauguration of President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah and the appointment of Dr Esperance Luvindao as the new health minister.
Nangombe said this period of transition will present both transformation and new opportunities for the ministry.
“There is no better time to engage in planning to enhance the present and future of healthcare in Namibia,” he said.
At the heart of the discussions are three key documents: the Strategic Plan for 2025/26 to 2030/31, the Annual Plan for 2025/26, and performance agreements for the minister, the executive director, and senior managers.
Nangombe said that these are to be delivered in accordance with Office of the Prime Minister timelines, with the first draft of the Strategic Plan due on 31 March and the final version by 30 April 2025.
He made it clear that this was not an exercise in bureaucracy, but an obligation to reshape the health system’s performance.
“You were selected to attend this planning session because of the belief that you can add value to the endeavour. Don’t disappoint the ministry. Don’t disappoint me. Don’t disappoint yourselves,” he warned.
Nangombe said the plan should be rooted in reality but aspirational in its vision, drawing on achievements such as the expansion of healthcare in rural areas and improvements in emergency response.
“At the same time, however, gaps persist. The plans we craft here must be aimed at effectively addressing those gaps in all their manifestations – inequities, constraints to access, the conduct of health care workers, faltering project management, tardy processes,” he said.
Nangombe encouraged a collaborative and solutions-focused approach.
“You know your directorates, your divisions, your regions and your facilities best. Your duty is to craft strategic interventions that will enable your functional units to excel,” he said.
According to Nangombe, the strategic planning process also builds on recent training involving all regions and aims to align Ministry plans with national goals, including Vision 2030, the sixth National Development Plan (NDP6), and the ruling party’s manifesto implementation framework.
“In her inaugural address, President Nandi-Ndaitwah reminded us that access to quality health care is a fundamental right for every Namibian, regardless of their economic or social circumstance,” he said.
He added that the newly launched Customer Service Charter and unit-level service charters further reflect the Ministry’s resolve to raise the standard of public health delivery.
Nangombe said the ministry hopes to emerge with a practical and unified strategy capable of improving healthcare outcomes across the country.
“Let us reshape the future of health delivery by the Ministry of Health and Social Services to the people of Namibia,” he said.
