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AfricaFocus Bulletin
In Namibia in 2014, the ruling SWAPO party decided to adopt a 50-50 gender quota for
its representatives in the National Assembly. This brought the representation of
women in the National Assembly to 41% in the election that year (more than twice the
current 19% of women in the U.S. House of Representatives). Recent survey
results show that the move has proved highly popular in Namibia, with 71% of women
and 68% of men saying that such a quota should be mandated for all political parties.
Such detailed insights into public opinion are now available for over 30 African
countries, due largely to the work of Afrobarometer, a continent-wide network which
conducts professional surveys with local partners and is now reporting its results
from its 7th round of surveys since 1999.
Analyses of results from the November 2017 survey are now being released by the
Institute for Public Policy Research in Windhoek, Namibia. Like Afrobarometer surveys
in other countries, they provide a valuable antidote to over-generalization and
stereotypes, whether nefarious or simply uninformed, about "Africans" or indeed
"all" people in any country in Africa or anywhere in the world.
I have often made reference to Afrobarometer surveys in AfricaFocus (see
http://tinyurl.com/y9xrnscx for previous Bulletins making use of Afrobarometer).
Today's Bulletin focuses on Namibia, both because it is a country that rarely
features in international news other than for tourist travel, and because of notable
findings such as on the leading role the country is taking on women's rights to
political leadership. AfricaFocus readers may laugh at President Trump's invention
of a country called "Nambia" last year (see coverage in Washington Post at
http://tinyurl.com/yacr7lg6). But all of us non-Namibians can benefit from more
nuanced understanding of Namibia.
More generally, Afrobarometer deserves much wider attention from scholars,
journalists, and anyone interested in substituting nuanced analysis for stereotypes.
Increasingly global polling firms also include African countries, with surveys in
local languages and sophisticated methodology. But Afrobarometer has pioneered in
doing this. And, while commercial firms do not allow access to the public for closer
analysis of the data, Afrobarometer provides a flexible and user-friendly on-line
tool for doing so, while protecting individual privacy. At the end of this Bulletin I
show a few tables and graphs generated with their on-line data analysis tool.
In addition to gender, other topics addressed in the excerpts below include the
negotiations with Germany for reparations for the early 20th century genocide of the
Herero and Nama, and the state of Namibia's economy and democracy. The next presentation,
on May 22 in Windhoek, will focus on service delivery in rural and urban areas.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Namibia, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/namibia.php
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An additional reason for the focus on Namibia this week is work AfricaFocus is doing
with the Making the Road travel seminars to Southern Africa and Cuba
(http://makingtheroad.com), and in particular the group going to South Africa and
Namibia this summer. In 2016 and 2017 I began working with my long-time friend and
colleague Prexy Nesbitt to help out with some tasks, which have included preparing
resource guides for participants, including links to recent articles, videos, and
maps, to supplement their dialogues on the ground with social-justice activists and
liberation movement veterans.
Now we have decided to make these resource guides available to a wider audience on
the web. They are designed not as academic resources or for specialists, but as aides
in introducing background and issues relating to each country visited, highlighting
recent and accessible information.
Check them out at http://www.africafocus.org/mtr-resources/intro-resources.php
Just published, in coordination with work on today's Bulletin, is a short resource
guide on Namibia (https://tinyurl.com/MTR-Namibia).
The comparative map to the right, generated through http://thetruesize.com,
available in larger size in the resource guide, illustrates the relative size of Namibia and the United States.
Another short resource prepared for Making the Road, on
Southern Africa: Many Countries, Intersecting Histories, includes several
similar maps and short background text explaining how "Southern Africa" is more than
"South Africa."
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IPPR Presentation, 12 April 2018, Windhoek, Namibia
Afrobarometer http://www.afrobarometer.org Institute for Public Policy Research
http://ippr.org.na Institute for Justice and Reconciliation https://www.ijr.org.za/
The Afrobarometer team in Namibia, led by the Institute for Public Policy Research
and Survey Warehouse, interviewed 1,200 adult Namibians in November 2017. A sample of
this size yields country-level results with a margin of error of +/-3% at a 95%
confidence level. Previous surveys have been conducted in Namibia in 1999, 2002,
2003, 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2014.
[Excerpts only: full presentation available at http://tinyurl.com/y9onqvjv]
* Gender: Men 49 , Women 51
* Agree/Strongly agree that Germany should pay reparations - 66%
[Editor's note: AR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_Repositioning) is a youth movment focused on access to urban land. LPM was founded by former govenment officials and is planning to become a political party.] Namibians want gender quotas extended to regional councilsNews release Institute for Public Policy Research Windhoek, Namibia 12 April 2018 [Excerpts. For full set of figures, see original news release at http://tinyurl.com/ydb3p645] More than half of Namibians think that the increased number of women in the National Assembly has made Parliament more effective, according to the most recent Afrobarometer survey. Moreover, more than two-thirds of Namibians support the use of gender quotas to ensure more equal participation of men and women in both National Assembly and regional council elections. In 2015, Namibia leapfrogged many countries to become a global leader in the representation of women in the National Assembly after the ruling SWAPO party implemented a 50/50 party list. However, regional councils and the National Council continue to be dominated by men. With the next set of elections taking place in 2019 and 2020, and given the government's stated commitment to gender equality, gauging public support for quota systems, as well as perceptions of the impact on the National Assembly of the increased number of women, is timely. Key findings
Most Namibians (68%) believe that women should have the same chance as men of being elected to political office (Figure 4).
Respondents were asked: Which of the following statements is closest to your view? Statement 1: Men make better political leaders than women, and should be elected rather than women. Statement 2: Women should have the same chance of being elected to political office as men. (% who "agree" or "agree very strongly" with each statement). Majority of Namibians say traditional authorities should join negotiations on genocide reparationsInstitute for Public Policy Research Windhoek, Namibia News Release 12 April 2018 [Excerpts. For full set of figures, see original news release at http://tinyurl.com/y9ljws7f] Most Namibians say traditional authority representatives should participate in - if not lead - genocide negotiations with the German government, according to a new Afrobarometer survey. Only one in five citizens say the Namibian government should handle the negotiations on its own. Key findings
Respondents were asked: For each of the following statements, please tell me whether you disagree or agree: The German government should pay reparations to Namibia for the crimes of genocide committed against the Namibian people? Views of Namibia's economy darken sharply; youth more likely to consider emigrationAfrobarometer Dispatch No. 202, 1 May 2018 Maximilian Weylandt [Excerpts. For full set of figures, see original dispatch at http://tinyurl.com/y8du924y] SummaryIn the past two years, Namibia's economy has struggled. In 2016, the country saw two consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth, officially plunging it into a depression, followed by the first year since 1993 to record a decline in the GDP, by 0.8% in 2017 (Namibia Statistics Agency, 2018). At the same time, unemployment among youth, who make up almost 40% of the population, increased to 43.4% in 2016, up from 39.2% in 2014 (Namibia Statistics Agency, 2015, 2017). Citizens' perceptions tell a similar story: According to the most recent Afrobarometer survey, the share of Namibians who think the economy is doing poorly is at a historic high, triple the proportion in 2014, and almost two-thirds say the government is doing a bad job of managing the economy. Yet more than half describe their personal living conditions as good, and a majority expect things to get better over the coming year. Even though youth tend to rate their own living conditions more favourably than their older counterparts, they are particularly critical of the government's economic management. They are also more likely than their elders to be thinking about moving to another country. Economic considerations feature heavily in these thoughts: By far the most common reason for considering emigration is to find work. Key findings
Dramatic downturn in views on Namibia's economic conditionSince the second round of the Afrobarometer survey in Namibia in 2003, respondents have been asked how they would describe "the present economic condition of this country." In the preceding five rounds, Namibians who thought the state of the economy was "fairly good" or "very good" always far outnumbered those who considered it "fairly bad" or "very bad." As of November 2017, however, negative assessments of the economy stand at a record high, tied at 41% with positive evaluations (Figure 1). Compared to the 2014 survey, the proportion of citizens who describe the economy as "fairly bad" or "very bad" has almost tripled, while the share who say it is fairly/very good has dropped by 33 percentage points. This pattern holds across key demographic groups, with little difference by gender, age, area of residence, or educational level (Figure 2). A slight majority (52%) of Namibians consider their own living conditions "fairly good" or "very good" - a decrease from 60% in the 2014 survey (Figure 3). The share of Namibians who rate their living conditions as "fairly bad" or "very bad" has increased by 10 percentage points since the previous survey.
Respondents were asked: In general, how would you describe the present economic condition of this country?
Respondents were asked: In general, how would you describe your own present living conditions? Exploring Afrobarometer On-LineFor anyone interested in getting behind the headlines to understand recent developments in African countries in the 21st century, Afrobarometer is an indispensable source. Surveys are only one window into reality, of course, but they provide rich data that both help unpack stereotypes and provoke questions needing indepth exploration through other sources as well. For readers to make their own judgments, Afrobarometer provides full questionnaires and explanations of survey methodology for each country included over the seven rounds of surveys since 1999. The results sampled above from Namibia are from the most recent survey round from 2016/2018. The data from Namibia for that round is not yet available in the Online Data Analysis tool (http://afrobarometer.org/online-data-analysis/), which now has the latest data from 8 of the more 36 countries available from the previous round in 2014/2015. The tool is extremely flexible and not difficult to use, although it includes many option for creating tables and charts and for downloading raw data as well as results in different formats. Here are a few of the charts and tables I created from the Round 6 Namibia data, with one from South Africa for comparison. Note that these are not from the current Round 7 results reported above.
This breakdown by race shows that a majority of Namibians of all races were confident of the general direction the country was going, with close to 80% of both black and white Namibians giving positive ratings.
The percentage of favorable ratings for the current state of the economy in Namibia were slightly less positive, but still added up to over 70% for those saying either "fairly good" or "very good." [As noted in the IPPR report above, this had dropped sharply by the 2017 survey.]
The combined totals for satisfaction with democracy ("fairly satisfied" or "very satisfied" also came to 60% or over in all racial groups in Namibia. This contrasted with public opinion ratings of satisfaction with democracy in neighboring South Africa (chart below), which were both lower and showed significant variation by racial groups.
The snippets of data above are, of course, only teasers. But they show the potential richness of data available on-line, for more in-depth analyses by scholars knowledgeable about Namibia or for exploration by teachers, students, journalists, policy makers, or other analysts. AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org |