Opinions – Windhoek Observer

13 May

Purpose by design: The case for purpose coaching

Featured, Opinions

Jennifer MatheMany individuals and organisations are lately asking deeper questions about meaning, direction, and impact. Beyond professional success or financial achievement, people increasingly seek alignment between their values, their work, and the difference they hope to make in the world. This growing search for clarity and fulfilment has given rise to purpose coaching.In 2022, I surveyed working women within the age group 25 to 45 for the purpose of developing a coaching framework. The women surveyed revealed that they felt little satisfaction and fulfilment even though they were employed in their dream job. They felt like they were just going…

12 May

The Namibian crisis of self-worth, service and institutional decay

Opinions

Shafa Kaulinge There is a difficult conversation Namibia must begin to have with itself. Not a comfortable one, not a politically convenient one, and certainly not one that can be reduced to party politics, race slogans or the usual post-independence excuses. It is a question of what happens to a society when the formerly oppressed inherit the institutions of power, but not always the moral, administrative and emotional discipline required to transform them. Magezi Baloyi’s work on black self-hatred in South Africa is useful because it forces us to look beyond the visible symptoms of underdevelopment and into the psychological…

12 May

Tribute to the founding father Dr Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma

Opinions

Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar) History is not only shaped by events but also by the rare individuals whose lives become turning points within it. Founding father H.E. Dr Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma stands among those figures whose personal journey became inseparable from the liberation and reconstruction of an entire nation. His legacy is not merely political; it is foundational to the modern identity of Namibia and, more broadly, to the unfinished project of Southern African emancipation. Emerging from the harsh realities of colonial rule, Founding President Nujoma was formed in a system designed to suppress…

11 May

THE TURNING POINT | Namibia must stop becoming a country of ‘almost’

Opinions

There is something profoundly ironic about driving through one of the driest parts of Namibia and finding one of the country’s largest engineering achievements sitting largely underutilised. The Neckartal Dam is not a failure of infrastructure. It is, in fact, a remarkable feat of ambition. Built in a harsh and unforgiving environment, the dam stands as proof that Namibia is capable of executing large-scale projects when political will, financing and technical capacity align. The water is there. The asset is there. The vision was there. And yet, years later, the very economic promise that justified the project remains frustratingly incomplete.…

08 May

Xenophobia or Afrophobia, in South Africa: The convenient scapegoats and political diversion from the unfinished battle for economic liberation & sovereignty

Opinions

Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar) Every time an African burns the shop of another African while corporate power continues extracting wealth from African soil, the architecture of colonialism survives a little longer. That is the tragedy unfolding in South Africa today. The violence directed at African migrants is often presented as a crisis of criminality, border control, or social frustration. But beneath the smoke of burnt shops and angry slogans lies a deeper and more uncomfortable reality that millions of people are angry for legitimate reasons, yet much of that anger is being redirected toward…

06 May

Workers’ Day surrendered to the status quo of capitalism?

Opinions

Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro ANOTHER Workers’ Day has come and gone. Without much to write home about. This is despite the downward spiral trade unionism in Namibia has been seeing since independence. Year by year the trade union movement is losing its momentum, let alone its radicalism. It is not as if workers by any measure have, since independence, gained much ground. That is if gaining any ground and/or hold in an independent Namibia was and has been by any means the reason for the continued existence of the unions. This is exactly the problem of the union movement in the country.…

06 May

Honouring a nation builder: The enduring educational legacy of the right honourable Nahas Angula

Opinions

Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar) Education as the foundation of sovereignty Well before independence, the founding father Dr Sam Nujoma understood that education was not a peripheral social service but the structural backbone of statehood. Acting on this conviction, he entrusted Hon. Nahas Angula with a mission that, at the time, few fully grasped to design and later reconstruct an education system capable of sustaining a sovereign nation. With historical distance and in hindsight the strategic clarity of that decision is unmistakable. The durability of independence would not rest on political control alone but on…

05 May

The seed beneath the sand

Featured, Opinions

Obed Emvula Before we build Namibia's creative economy, we must first understand the people we are building it for. Picture a young woman in Katutura. It is early morning and still cool. She is charging camera batteries on a power strip beside her bed and checking the light through her window, mentally rehearsing the shots she needs before her client loses patience. She has no office, no salary, no sick leave. What she has is a story she wants to tell – and a country that has not yet decided whether that counts as work. Across town, a young man…

30 Apr

Unity and the political economy of power: At a 2026 crossroads

Opinions

Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar) At a moment of visible internal strain, the appeal for unity by President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah on the occasion of the inauguration of the new building for the Swapo party national headquarters is not routine rhetoric. It was a diagnosis and, signals more importantly, exposure. Unity, once embedded in the ruling party’s historical DNA, must now be actively produced, defended, and, crucially, legitimated. The significance of the crossroads of 2026 lies precisely here. It is a threshold. It will test whether the ruling party can complete a transformation that has eluded…

30 Apr

“Win-win” needs clear ideological delineation!

Opinions

Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro Since the discovery of oil in Namibia, the country, for better or worse, has been of particular interest to many developed countries and their so-called investors or explorers – you can call them what you wish. Only then do they know what and who they are and what their interests in Namibia are. But does Namibia actually know what the various interests of these countries and their citizens, foremost the so-called explorers and investors and what-have-you, are with regard to Namibia other than what they are pretending to be and which we as a country have been tempted…