Staff Writer
The Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB), in strategic partnership with FirstRand Namibia, recently convened close to 40 top executive business leaders for a CEOs’ Roundtable on Namibia’s Competitiveness.
The roundtable was also attended by I-Ben Nashandi, the executive director of the National Planning Commission, which tracks Namibia’s competitiveness in line with NDP6, as well as Shali Shindume, the economic advisor to the President and Dagmar Honsbein, chairperson of the Economic Recovery Task Force.
The executive engagement was organised in response to Namibia’s performance decline in the 2026 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY).
The 2026 edition, the 38th consecutive edition of the WCY, covers 70 economies and 341 criteria. It marks Namibia’s second consecutive appearance in the report, ranked alongside predominantly high and middle-income countries, including five African peers including Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
In the 2026 IMD WCY, Namibia ranked 69th out of 70 benchmarked economies (in 2025, Namibia ranked 68th out of 69 economies), with the country’s score dropping from 37.48 in 2025 to 28.48 in 2026.
The report highlighted systemic performance declines in the country’s ranking across all four main factors including business efficiency, government efficiency, infrastructure, and economic performance, each of which are based on 5 sub-factors, for a total of 20 sub-factors.
In terms of performance based on score, only the economic performance factor saw an improvement in its score (from 21.74 in 2025 to 22.30 in 2026), driven by improvements in rank and score on the sub-factors of International Trade and International Investment.
Delivering the opening address, NIPDB acting chief executive officer, Julia Muetudhana, stressed that competitiveness directly shapes the investment climate and economic wellbeing.
Conrad Dempsey, chief executive officer of FirstRand Namibia, highlighted that global interest in Namibia must be matched by institutional capacity to execute.
“How easy is it to create value in Namibia compared with somewhere else? Every significant investment decision begins there. Before businesses ask how much they can earn, they ask how difficult it will be to succeed,” noted Dempsey.
Executive director of the National Planning Commission, I-Ben Nashandi reaffirmed government commitment under Vision 2030 and NDP6, framing the IMD Report as an urgent catalyst.
“The current competitiveness rating is a call to action. We commit to NDP6 implementation to ensure we derive outcomes. Chasing the implementation of the plans is an imperative that will get us to improve competitiveness. Automation of services must be matched with internal capacities to drive digital transformation. Reforms need to be uniformly dispersed across all sectors, with timelines and champions to drive them,” said Nashandi.
As a key output of this executive engagement, NIPDB and FirstRand Namibia will consolidate the insights and consensus recommendations into a comprehensive advisory note for Cabinet.
