The Communication Regulatory Authority of Namibia has turned the page. From a single role as a statutory body enforcing compliance and licensing of the telecommunication sector, the institution has since taken on more.

As Namibia’s digital innovation drive comes calling, CRAN has not only answered such a call but has committed itself to driving the process.

The institution is now firmly at the center of digital transformation as it expands on its mandate to include cybersecurity and other revolutionary digital advances. To allow for this to happen, the institution’s mandate was expanded.

Cybersecurity enhancements

As CRAN Chief Executive Officer, Emilia Nghikembua puts it, the institution is now hosting Namibia Cyber Incident Response Team. This means that CRAN has a pivotal role to play in matters relating to cybersecurity and related topics.

“We are a public enterprise established in terms of the Communications Act. It’s an act of parliament which was passed in 2009. Our responsibility is to regulate telecommunications and broadcasting, as well as postal services and the use and management of radio frequency.

“We also received additional mandate which pertains to public key infrastructure, which is eIDs, electronic signatures, as well as the accreditation of e-electronic, um, services and products,” she said.

Nghikembua said challenges still persist in getting Namibia at shoulder-length with the rest of the world in terms of its digital transformation race, although strides have already been made in this area.

It starts with the law making process, as some laws have become outdated and do not respond to the realities of modern society.

“Currently the law we have is a 2009 law. From a technological landscape, the big thing happening in 2009 was the launch of 3G, for instance. But as we’re talking today in 2026, we’re talking about sunsetting 3G because it’s not even considered anymore as a broadband technology.

“We are now talking about 5G, and there are even conversations around 6G already. So, the question would be: How do you then regulate a market that is moving to 6G with a law that was originally designed for 2G, which is no longer considered a broadband technology?

As part of its digital drive, Leadership CRAN believes the roll out of new technologies is pivotal to this cause. This should however be done in a controlled environment to allow for sufficient testing before releasing such products into the mainstream.

These are some of the interventions contained in the new strategic plan for CRAN, which is expected to come into force soon.

“It [the stratergic plan] is going to focus on issues like regulatory sandboxes to allow for space, safe spaces to test technology before we deploy it on a large scale. It’s going to focus primarily on the introduction of public key infrastructure, which is tied in with the initiative that Home Affairs is launching on electronic IDs, and I think that is an exciting project from a technology landscape as far as we are concerned as a country,” she noted.

Digital transformation

According to Nghikembua, digital literacy is important to allow citizens to catch up to the pace of digital transformation and innovation set by the country. For this to happen, Namibians need to be brought up to speed with the various technological advancement, and encouraged to develop trust with such.

Digital transformation is therefore vital if the country is to achieve its vision of becoming a digital innovation leader.

Nghikembua said it was important to note that real digital transformation goes beyond platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp or TikTok. Digital transformation, instead, about what economicaly meaningfull services one can enjoy while online.

“Do people trust that if I open a website and put in my credentials, that my money will not disappear? And that comes with awareness and education. But it also then comes with the correct level of consumer user hygiene as well as network security. Other variables will also come to play, like your quality of service; Is the network actually performing optimally so that you can effectively complete that transaction that you’d like to complete,” she said. As a prominent role player in Namibia’s digital drive, CRAN find itself in good space. Accoding to Nghikembua, the institution has done well on its current three-year stratergic plan. Such success, she said, will be build on to futher advance the company’s mandate in the new stratergic plan planned for 1 April.

“We will be launching a new strategy on the 1st of April. It’s a four-year strategy that effectively takes us to 2030. When we look back over the past three-year cycle, I think on average we’ve had a strategy and operational execution rate of 80%, and that is well above the targets that we have set for ourselves.

“And those numbers actually put us in a comfortable position where we can say we have effectively executed that which we were entrusted with.

Our employees are very important to us because we believe that we cannot achieve that which we are entrusted with if we don’t have our team, and we have really spent a lot of time and effort into generating a strong leadership culture, which we enjoy very much at the moment,” she noted.