There is a famous song by Bob Marley: “Get up – stand up. Stand up for your right. Don’t give up the fight”.
This song encourages the poor and marginalised to claim their rights by freeing their minds, updating their thinking and telling everyone that “the weak hatching bird can be the first to take flight”.
In short, fish can leap at will in a boundless sea, so the question is how this “hatching bird” can be the first to fly and how we can make that happen.
An impoverished person cannot have impoverished ideals in Namibia, which is considered one of the most unequal countries in the world, with a high Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality.
The country consistently ranks near the top, often second only to South Africa, in terms of income inequality globally.
This high level of inequality is a persistent challenge for Namibia, affecting various aspects of society since poverty is multidimensional.
The poor face a challenge in such a situation to fight for their rights by rejecting impoverished ideals like accepting the status quo of being poor or finding contentment in poverty.
Instead, they must energise their spirits, dismiss the mentality that they are helpless and begin the fight to free and liberate their minds.
They need to update their thinking and show everyone that even a weak, emerging bird can be the first to take flight, enabling the poorest to become the leaders of tomorrow.
This will help the poor break free from old ways of viewing problems and approach things positively.
It directly challenges the prevailing top-down approaches in Namibia today.
At times, when the disadvantaged are eager to be the first to pursue progress, they must carefully examine initiatives like Vision 2030, the utopian blueprint of Founding President Sam Nujoma that seems distant from the current poverty issues facing the nation, as it aims to become an industrialised country.
Furthermore, Namibia’s Sixth National Development Plan (NDP6) is a strategic framework designed to drive the country toward achieving Vision 2030, to become a developed and industrialised nation.
Launched on 22 July 2025 by President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, NDP6 serves as the final instalment in a series of national development plans, covering the period from 2025/26 to 2029/30.
While the economy has grown substantially since Namibia’s independence in 1990, leading to improved living standards for a few, this economic growth has come at the expense of a large segment of the population that has not yet fully participated in a modern economy and all its benefits.
This is the main reason why poverty exists in Namibia today.
This issue of how to solve the existing poverty in Namibia is not directly addressed in Vision 2030 and NDP6, but they merely promise a rose garden to improve the quality of life for the Namibian people to the level of their counterparts in the developed world by 2030.
Instead of promising a rose garden, we must deal directly and concretely with the daily experiences faced by the poor by developing and implementing comprehensive strategies to overcome poverty.
In short, this involves creating a strategy for overcoming poverty through means such as guaranteed income throughout the life cycle, public services for capacity building, as well as social and labour inclusion policies.
All of these point to a national development or transformation agenda that must address the multiple levels of poverty.
For example, the World Economic Forum (WEF) identifies poverty and inequality as Namibia’s most urgent risks for 2025.
It means that our implementation strategies should not just focus on profit but also on uplifting the lives of the poor and marginalised.
We need to understand that many Namibians, because of their education level, location or health, cannot fully participate in the modern economy and are, therefore, vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty.
This is the main reason for poverty in Namibia today. Exclusion from the modern economy manifests in various ways, including contributing to the multidimensional aspects of poverty.
Yes, poverty is truly a multidimensional concept.
It is not just about lacking income but also involves various other aspects of life that influence well-being and opportunities.
These aspects include health, education, living standards and social inclusion.
Most countries worldwide define poverty as the lack of money.
However, the poor themselves see their experience of poverty much more broadly.
A poor person can face multiple disadvantages simultaneously – for example, poor health or malnutrition, lack of clean water or electricity, low-quality work or limited education.
Focusing on just one factor, like income, does not fully capture the reality of poverty.
Instead, addressing poverty requires a multi-faceted approach that includes social protection, safety nets, infrastructure development, job creation, education, skill development and economic growth.
In short, a more accurate measure of poverty reflects multiple dimensions, not just monetary value.
This calls for a deliberate and coordinated policy response to address the various deprivations that continue to affect the well-being of many households and their children. Therefore, the truth is that the shameful face of poverty is trapping us all as Namibians, and structural changes should be actively pursued with the understanding that the poor dictate the agenda for their emancipation.
Otherwise, the sad paradox of an enrichment/impoverishment relationship that exists, a zero-sum situation where the increased material well-being or prosperity of some necessarily entails diminishing wealth for others, remains in place.
In other words, let us suggest that the poverty of the many is a direct result of the undue affluence of a relatively few. Therefore, the dream, wisdom, philosophy and anthropology of Africa, which prioritise putting human beings at the heart of Ubuntu first and only afterwards focusing on power, politics, religion, sex and economic or social status, should be the top priority for developing strategies to lift people out of poverty.
Better expressed, poverty is understood to be created by us, as humans, through the structures we have established. Poverty is mainly systemic, resulting from inadequate political, economic and social systems, as well as a complete lack of effective planning and implementation. These systems are shaped by what is commonly known in Namibia as elitism, where the wealthy and powerful are well-connected politically, economically and technologically, while most of their colleagues, brothers, and sisters live in extreme and relative poverty.
The issue of poverty and living in poverty needs to be addressed in Namibia.
Namibia has a relatively small population but is rich in resources.
As Africans, we pride ourselves on the Ubuntu philosophy. As Christians, we follow the directives of Jesus as expressed in Matthew 25 to be workers in solidarity with the unemployed, hungry, homeless, sick and marginalised. In short, it emphasises the unbreakable link between sustainability, social-political-economic justice and participation in a democratic process.
That means the possibility for social transformation is closely linked with the capacity of the poor to achieve their emancipation, the liberation of the rich, and the healing and wholeness of us all, or to paraphrase the words of Bob Marley, “Freedom fight we have won by getting up and standing up and never to give up the fight”.
* Prof. Paul John Isaak is a former chief electoral officer at ECN, a former professor at Unam and a former rector of Paulinum Seminary. He writes in his capacity.