Agenda 2030 Partnership – Sustainable Development Goals Initiative II Namibia

Project description

Title: Sustainable Development Goals Initiative II (SDG-I)
Commisioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ))
Country: Namibia
Partner: Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), Ministry of Finance (MoF)
Lead executing agency: National Planning Commission (NPC)
Overall term: 2020 to 2022

Context

Although the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not legally binding, at the UN Summit on 25 September 2015, Namibia reaffirmed the importance of the fight against poverty and stressed that it would play an active role in the implementation of Agenda 2030. The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany recognised this initiative and agreed to cooperate with the Government of Namibia by implementing a joint project on SDGs under its “Initiative Programme 2030”. A concept was developed for the Namibian-German Sustainable Development Goals Initiative and agreed upon in 2017. This will enable Namibia and Germany to exchange information about experiences and to contribute to the planning, financing and monitoring of the national implementation of the Agenda 2030 in Namibia.

Objective

The Namibian Government is working to establish the prerequisites for planning, financing and monitoring the national implementation of Agenda 2030.

Approach

Activities will be carried out in three fields of action:

1. “Policy coherence”: to enable the NPC and its Secretariat to improve its instruments and processes for integrating Agenda 2030 national priorities into its planning and budgeting activities. As part of this, Namibia conducted the Development Finance Assessment, which aims to ensure an evidence-based alignment between the planning and financing of the national implementation of Agenda 2030.
2. “Reform of the tax administration”: the goal of this is to prepare the setting up of a semi-autonomous revenue authority — the Namibia Revenue Authority (NamRA). This will allow Namibia to generate its own resources to finance the national implementation of Agenda 2030. By establishing NamRA, the vacant positions in the new structure will be filled and adequate documentation of key tax reform processes ensured.
3. “Monitoring the implementation of Agenda 2030”: this aims to empower the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) in its coordinating role as a collector of data. This, in turn, creates the prerequisites for establishing a national monitoring and review system for the national implementation of Agenda 2030. These activities will also make sure that agreements are in place with data providers in the country, thus ensuring that correct and verifiable information is readily available.

Results

The Namibian Cabinet approved the 2018 Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) report. It was presented at the high-level political forum (HLPF) in July 2018 by the Minister of Economic Planning together with a civil society organisation (CSO) representative in New York.

The Namibia Development Finance Assessment (DFA) Report was developed and was launched in October 2020.

The SDGs’ Communications Strategy was developed and launched in October 2020.

A review is being carried out of Namibia’s 5th NDP, along with tracking status of implementation of Vision 2030 to support the formulation of the 6th NDP.

A roadmap for the establishment of the Namibia Revenue Authority was prepared and adopted by the Ministry of Finance and is currently being implemented. A NamRA board and commissioner have been appointed. The official launch is set for April 2021.

The Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) went live on 17 January 2019. The Automated System for Customs Data (AYSCUDA) process is already up and running and being used by customs authorities.

The Namibia Statistic Agency developed the SDG baseline report in 2019. It shows that 75 per cent of 244 SDG indicators have been validated and are being monitored nationally.

The SDG Baseline Report has been disseminated in many regions, with the rest of the country to be engaged in 2021.

Last update: March 2021