Erasmus Shalihaxwe
The Swapo Party Youth League’s (SPYL) secretary general, Ephraim Nekongo has stated that the party’s election manifesto, which was launched over the past weekend, was generated by a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model and not ChatGPT.
In a statement he issued yesterday to defend the party, Nekongo stated that the CGE model was calibrated using the 2019 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the Namibian economy, employed to simulate and estimate the potential impacts of proposed youth employment strategies.
‘’The CGE model, a widely recognized tool for ex-ante policy evaluation, allows for comprehensive analysis across sectors and agents in the economy, making it indispensable for identifying, selecting, and monitoring optimal strategies to tackle development challenges, including youth unemployment,’’ said Nekongo.
He explained that the 2019 SAM, is developed by the Namibia Statistics Agency, and serves as the foundational economic database that captures the complex interdependencies and linkages between sectors, households and institutions within the Namibian economy.
‘’By calibrating the CGE model on the SAM, a robust, transparent, and reproducible framework for evaluating the employment strategies outlined in the Manifesto is created. The analysis specifically focused on quantifying the spillover effects of public investment on employment, with particular emphasis on youth employment. To achieve this, official data from the Namibia Statistics Agency was utilized to establish the relationship between public investment and sectoral Gross Domestic Product (GDP),’’ he explained.
Nekongo added that this relationship was then introduced into the CGE model as an exogenous shock, enabling the simulation of direct, indirect, and induced effects on key economic indicators such as GDP growth, employment levels, and poverty reduction.
The findings offer critical insights into how targeted policy interventions can drive youth employment and broader economic outcomes, providing evidence-based recommendations for effectively addressing the challenge of youth unemployment in Namibia.
‘’Independent Senior Economist, Mwala Lubinda has corroborated and confirmed that the methodology applied is very suitable in undertaking socio-economic foresighting in the most accurate manner. We look forward to the deliberate rollout campaign that will desensitize our Namibians countrywide, to appreciate and acknowledge the deliberate efforts crafted with much deliberate research to ensure the Namibia we want to see in the future.
To build a country we need the entire citizenry to positively participate, contribute and co-operate with government initiatives towards transforming their lives and their communities. A successful campaign is driven by the national positive response to government initiatives. We, therefore, are the conduits to that conversation,’’ he said.
