Capacity Building on Public Policy Development, Review, Evaluation and Coordination for the Acceleration of the SDGs in Namibia

Honourable Obeth Kandjoze, Director General of the National Planning Commission (NPC) virtually launched the Capacity Building Programme on Public Policy, Development, Review, Evaluation and Coordination for the acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Namibia. In attendance of the convention were representatives of the National Planning Commission (NPC); representatives of GIZ Namibia; representatives of the United Nations System including UN Namibia (UNN) and UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), in addition to Expert resource persons.

Honourable Obeth Kandjoze delivered welcoming remarks, extended gratitude to everyone in attendance and emphasized the aims of the meeting.

“We develop policies all the time and we have done so over the last 30 years of independence. We need  to ask ourselves who we are developing the policies for, why we are developing policies, how we can go about implementing them, what reviewing policies entail and who the intended beneficiaries of the recommendations are” he noted.

Mr. Amson Sibanda, Chief, National Strategies and Capacity Building Branch, DSDG/UNDESA, conveyed opening remarks on behalf of Mr. Alex Trepelkov, Officer- in-Charge of the Division for Sustainable Development Goals and Mr. Juwang Zhu, Director, Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government. He highlighted that it is critical that countries articulate credible macroeconomic frameworks that can underpin successful planning processes.

 

“The adoption of evidence-based policy, planning and practices will also make development sustainable, more resilient and less vulnerable to the negative impacts of emerging challenges such as COVID-19 and climate change” he said.

The objective of the launch and scoping webinar was to officially launch, understand the background and nature of the demand, and establish clear purpose, scope and objectives of this capacity building technical activity. This meeting follows the NPC’s Act No. 2 of 2013, which mandates NPC to conduct the monitoring and evaluation of socio-economic development interventions, including ensuring its effectiveness and consistency in the implementation thereof.

Attending the meeting and delivering his remarks were Mr. Sen Pang, UN Resident Coordinator Designate who reiterated that the UN family is in full commitment to assist the NPC in its efforts to realize its important mandate.

 

“Thank you again to NPC for the leading role you have taken in developing this initiative, and for preparations of this Official launch” he declared.

This capacity development programme comes at a time when our country is facing unprecedented levels of youth unemployment, housing shortage, COVID-19 induced economic stagnation resulting in high loan default rates, households risking home foreclosures or repossessions, economic slowdowns especially in the construction and mining, tourism and hospitality sectors. Inevitably, these anomalies demand policy development and coordination responsive to the new norm. The 4th industrial revolution, coupled with artificial intelligence requires regular programming, reprogramming of policies to remain relevant, adept and transformational to the citizens’ needs.

Speaking at the meeting was Ms. Rachel Odede, UN Resident Coordinator a.i. who emphasized the importance of the capacity building of NPC.

 

“I cannot over-emphasize the importance of this work: Capacity development is one of the Means of Implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. By sharing our knowledge and experience, we position ourselves to better deliver, to those that we serve for people, planet and prosperity” she asserted.

Policy making just like development cannot be for us, without us, hence the need to have empirical evidence in the policy making process. Going forward the National Planning Commission is confident  and optimistic that the learning outcomes with the capacity building programme will aid the commission in coordinating the implementation of development programmes envisioned in a manner that expediently improves country specific aspirations contained in the grand plans of Vision 2030, NDP5, SDGs and AU Agenda 2063.