The Green Hydrogen Programme hosted a panel discussion assessing the socioeconomic impact of green hydrogen in Namibia, under the theme “An Economic Outlook: Assessing the Socio-Economic Benefits of Namibia’s Green Hydrogen Industry”. Held in collaboration with the Bank of Namibia and the Namibia Statistics Agency, this session provided an in-depth analysis of green hydrogen’s potential to drive sustainable economic growth and social advancement across Namibia.
The Government of Namibia’s commitment to fostering sustainable development has led to prioritising the competitive production of green hydrogen (GH2) as one of the key drivers for socioeconomic transformation. Sustainable GH2 production has the potential to diversify the Namibian economy, create employment, reduce poverty, and address income inequality. The keynote address was delivered by, Hon. Obeth Kandjoze, the Director General of the National Planning Commission highlighting the alignment of the Green Hydrogen Programme with Namibia’s socioeconomic goals and current initiatives to address challenges within the framework “This initiative also aligns with our environmental goals, contributing to global decarbonisation efforts while fostering economic resilience at home,” he noted. He further spoke on the findings of the research “Today, we will gain invaluable insights from the Ex-ante Socioeconomic Impact Assessment. This rigorous analysis provides a roadmap for understanding the tangible benefits of green hydrogen for our communities. The models employed reveal not only economic growth projections but also the human stories behind the numbers, stories of opportunities for families, small businesses, and young professionals,” he emphasized.
The panel discussion brought together stakeholders from government, private sector, and civil society to discuss the Ex-ante Socioeconomic Impact Assessment results, highlighting the socioeconomic advantages of green hydrogen development. The assessment leverages advanced economic modelling techniques, specifically a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model paired with a Household Microsimulation (HM) Model, to forecast the anticipated impacts of current and future investments within the broader GH2 landscape on Namibia’s economy and society.
Moderated by Ricardo Goagoseb, the panel included James Mnyupe, Namibia’s Green Hydrogen Commissioner; Mwala Lubinda, Lecturer at the Namibia University of Science and Technology and Associate Researcher at MONASA Advisories; Dr. Theopolina Kapani, Head of Technical and Construction at the Namibia Green Hydrogen Programme; Dr. Eline van der Linden, Head of Impact and ESG at the Namibia Green Hydrogen Programme and Dr. Zivayi Chiguvare, Acting Director of the Namibia Green Hydrogen Research Institute. Mnyupe eluded that, the emerging GH2 ecosystem has the potential to diversify Namibia’s economy and propel us all closer to the goals embodied in Vision 2030 and spoke on,the importance of the assessment “While we’re solving for opportunities that we know exist, we do need a model like the one presented, that is live and we can tweak and teach as real business cases begin to show themselves in Namibia. Whenever you try to problem solve fow how can this industry thrive in Namibia, you also have to compare how it will thrive against an industry in Morrocco, Mauritania, Egypt and South Africa, so as we shape our strategy and our industry, we’re studying for competitives in absolute and in relative terms,” he stated.
Kapani further shared insight on the infrastrurcture development across different sectors “In order to derisk the sector and also to lower the barriers of entry, what we are envisioning to do is build out what we call common user infrastructure, these are shared infrastructure such as the hydrogen pipelines, ammonia pipelines, dissolination plants as well as port infrustucture really to derisk the sector and attract investments into the green hydrogen sector and also to minimize the environment impacts of each developer potentially buiding up their own infrastructure” she stated. Van der Linden spoke on equal distribution of the benefits ”We don’t expect immediate entry into the market for those that are underskilled and under-resourced, but we do believe that as employments increases for those who are a little better resourced and who do have some of the knowledge and some of the skills, we will see some trickle down effects in the economy and we believe that as the economy grows, we will see higher fiscal income so there will be more fiscal space,” she noted.
Lastly, Chiguvare addressed the importance of the research and the role of researchers for ”We want to shock the system by introducing green hydrogen which was not used for the purposes that we are now thinking of and we did not have it as green, research institutions contribute through conducting research on how the system will respond and this now allows us to make plans in terms of looking at various scenarios that allow us to say, in two years time, how will this fail in Namibia and globally and in five years time and one hundred years time, we need to plan one hundred years ahead, without system modelings like this ECG, you can not do it, ” he mentioned. The session provided the attendees with an overview of the assessment methodology, including the expanded 2019 SAM, CGE model assumptions such as market behavior, production technologies, and potential external shocks, and HM model considerations addressing household heterogeneity and income distribution.
Lubinda and Schade, the key findings were revealed that the Namibia Green Industrialisation Agenda (NGIA) could potentially create about 120k additional employment opportunities during th investment phase, and sustain 30k job opportunities per year during the operational phase.The NGIA could potentially add about N$129bn additional GDP during th investment phase, and N$177bn additional per year during the operational phase.The NGIA could potentially increase household income by about N$99.4bn during th investment phase and N$87.9bn per year during the operational phase,” he remarked. The discussion also geared towards providing the public as well as the stakeholders with an overview of the methodology used, specifically focusing on expanding the 2019 SAM, the CGE model assumptions such as market behaviour, production technologies, and external shocks, and the HM model assumptions including household heterogeneity and income distribution. The socialization process provided stakeholders with a clear understanding of how these models work together to simulate the economic and social impacts of the GH2 strategy.
The discussion affirmed Namibia’s dedication to transparency and stakeholder inclusivity as the country pursues an ambitious green hydrogen strategy that promises substantial long-term benefits for its citizens and economy.