[{"bbox": [96, 151, 1136, 790], "category": "Text", "text": "2021, and timer related corruption cases throughout the past decade at local and regional level¹⁰ all serve to reinforce the perception that corruption is on the rise in Namibia, particularly in the sectors dealing with **natural resources** (including wildlife), **mining and marine resources**. Recent developments, e.g. the prospects of commercial offshore oil extraction and to the preparations for the production of Green Hydrogen in Namibia offer both enormous economic and development opportunities for Namibia, and opportunities for mismanagement at the same time. Clearly, the track record of natural resource management in Namibia during the past decades has been not only been successful, despite of the narrative of Namibia being a model for conservation and environmental protection. The depletion of Namibia's natural resources can mainly be attributed to a partial failure of governance.¹¹ While large corruption scandals in the natural resource sector – all white collar crimes - are dominating the public discourse, cases of embezzlement, conflicts of interest, nepotism, public procurement scandals are surfacing on a regular basis. Corruption is also increasingly perceived in public service delivery that particularly affect vulnerable people, which is the majority of the Namibian population, threatening development outcomes in multiple sectors, including justice, health and education. At the same time, delays in both adoption and implementation of key legislation such as “Access to Information”, “Whistle-blower Protection Act”, “Witness Protection Act”, just to name a few, are being significantly delayed, weakening the performance potential of the integrity system in terms of transparency, accessibility and accountability. The prevalence of corruption is an area of immense concern for the government as well as for its population, donors and development partners - as it negatively effects growth, equal access to quality public services, discourages and deters domestic and foreign investors and reduces the impact of poverty reduction programmes. Support to strengthening vital pillars and institutions of the national integrity system Namibia to pro-actively implement the national Anti-Corruption Strategy and other relevant strategies and action plans will not only encourage positive transformations at institutional level, but it will also leverage direct positive effects on human development, reduce inequality and support informed public debate, awareness and enhanced oversight. More transparency and access to information will also decrease the information gap between the population and the government."}, {"bbox": [96, 826, 1136, 1332], "category": "Text", "text": "**Gender Equality:** The MGEPESW was established with the objective of ensuring the empowerment of women, men and children, and the equality between men and women as prerequisites for full participation in political, legal, social, cultural and inclusive economic development. However, despite of progressive legislation in place¹², cultural practices, co-habitation and the continued economic marginalisation of women put women at a distinct disadvantage. The Namibian government has consistently promoted gender equality and women's rights and is pursuing its objectives through the National Gender Policy (2010-2020)¹³ and National Combatting GBV Plan of Action (2019-2023), as well as through a dedicated gender coordination mechanism. However, despite the high-level political commitment, GBV, which includes family violence¹⁴, remains a perennial problem in Namibia. The two most common forms of GBV in Namibia are rape and domestic violence. Both of these forms of GBV affect women and girls disproportionally more than boys and men. Namibia has made significant policy strides to address issues relating to assault and sexual violence (including harmful practices), however, GBV has reached a worrying dimension during the past decade and no signs of significant improvement are in sight¹⁵. Apart from the necessity to strengthen national institutions' capacity to deliver comprehensive and integrated quality essential services such as health, social protection, policing and justice to survivors of GBV, there is also the need to enhance the support the technical capacity of the MGEPESW, particularly with regards to the implementation of the National Combatting GBV Plan of Action and the National Gender Policy, through the ministry itself, but also through other relevant ministries and agencies. The EU's support to system strengthening will have a direct positive impact on victims of GBV and national bodies and inter alia law enforcement agencies in charge of combatting GBV, as well as on civil society organisations active in this area."}, {"bbox": [96, 1343, 1136, 1425], "category": "Text", "text": "The Multiannual Indicative Programme 2021-2027 for Namibia has identified the fight against corruption and GBV and the support to Gender Equality as instrumental in strengthening the transparency, accountability, efficiency and service-delivery of a whole range of Namibian public institutions. This is where the EU's support"}, {"bbox": [86, 1451, 877, 1477], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁰ https://ippr.org.na/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/IPPR_%20RISKCORRUPTION_Paper9.pdf"}, {"bbox": [86, 1477, 787, 1501], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹¹ https://ippr.org.na/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Depleting-natural-capital-web.pdf"}, {"bbox": [86, 1501, 1143, 1573], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹² The country has developed relevant pro gender legislations and frameworks. The government is also signatory to international conventions and commitments including CEDAW, Beijing Platform of Action, SDGs, African charter of peoples and human rights and its protocol related to women's rights, SADC Protocol on Gender and Development."}, {"bbox": [86, 1573, 540, 1598], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹³ Under review, update expected to be tabled in 2022."}, {"bbox": [86, 1598, 1055, 1622], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁴ https://afrobarometer.org/press/majority-namibians-approve-parents-using-physical-force-discipline-their-children"}, {"bbox": [86, 1622, 1128, 1646], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁵ https://afrobarometer.org/press/majority-namibians-say-gender-based-violence-common-should-be-treated-criminal-matter"}, {"bbox": [1038, 1681, 1144, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 6 of 29"}]