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OPINION – Critical need for sustainable national data governance policy

OPINION – Critical need for sustainable national data governance policy

Namibia is formulating her 6th National Development Plan (NDP) to cover the period 2025 – 2030. The NDPs in Namibia have been facilitated through the National Planning Commission (NPC) under the Office of the President. The NPC defines NDPs as large-scale investment programmes to develop both soft and hard infrastructure for the development of the country. The NDPs are executed over a period of five years. Parallel to the NDPs, Namibia has a broader vision called Namibia’s Vision 2030, which is a long-term perspective plan outlining the course of development and the ideal country that Namibia would like to be in the year 2030. Namibia has so far covered five NDP periods 1995-2000, 2001-2006, 2007-2012, 2012-2017 and 2017–2022, extended to 2024/2025. 

Additionally, during NDP 5, Namibia developed the Harambe Prosperity Plans I and II, aimed at fast-tracking development in areas where progress was deemed to be insufficient as well as incorporating new development opportunities and addressing challenges that have emerged after the formulation of NDPs. Each NDP necessitates a robust review and evaluation framework that is trustworthy to give national confidence in the reported programme outcomes. Data becomes the compass for any monitoring and evaluation framework to assess the effectiveness of any programme implementation. 

The availability of and access to quality data and statistics on the entire thematic areas of the HPPs and NDPs fortifies the review and evaluation frameworks that are put in place. The need for timely and quality data and statistics has been a continuous national call, particularly in the reviews of the current and past NDPs. The difficulty which our national reviews experience due to lack of quality data and statistics should be a point of serious reflection and government prioritisation as we formulate our NDP 6. 

There ought to be a national prioritisation of effective data governance across NDP- executing Offices, Ministries and Agencies (OMAs), which should include setting up proper data management frameworks and systems that ensure the protection of data, while making it easily accessible. Data governance is a principled approach to managing data during its life cycle, from acquisition to use and archiving. It means setting internal standards and data policies that apply to how data is gathered, stored processed and archived. 

It can be stated with certainty here that high quality data is the pedestal for informed policymaking, efficient resource allocation, and effective public service delivery. Regrettably, there are still many blank spaces, particularly across government that need to be filled to fully achieve data-driven policy intervention, planning and decision-making. Government through the Statistics Act, No. 9 of 2011, has established the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) as a central data and statistical repository of the State. A data repository is a central location in which data is stored and managed. Thus, an urgent need to reposition data and statistics in the NDP 6 to strengthen all the anticipated monitoring and evaluation frameworks is relevant. Subsequently, a call to enable the NSA to fully execute its national data mandate as stipulated in the Statistics Act is a valid one. Namibia has more to lose without proper data intelligence as we navigate through this digital era. Data is increasingly being considered as a natural resource by many countries and Namibia should not remain behind as this is central to our national security, technological advancement, budgeting, programme implementation, and governance. Fundamentally, there is a need for government to step forward and secure this national resource as a matter of urgency before things get out of control. Thus, this calls for a prioritised national data governance framework. 

*Alex Muluti Mudabeti is an executive at the Namibia Statistics Agency responsible for statistical geography and coordination of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). He writes this article in his personal capacity, and views expressed in it are his own.