Presentation by Bishop Zephaniah Kameeta to the United Nations Commission for Social Development – 45th Session, 7-16 February 2007 If indeed there was a good practice model “for all”, we would not be here. If we had the answers to promote decent work for all, we could sit back and enjoy our God-given life. Unfortunately, we have not yet arrived there, but I am still glad to be here – because it gives us the opportunity to share our experiences, proposals, and certainly also our failures. We can also state where we believe that we are on the road towards a good practice model. Let me clarify, what I mean by good practice. We, in Namibia, are not interested in the story of the dishwasher who became a millionaire – this to me is not a best practice model. We do have those individual “best” practice models in Namibia: The once poor boy who now is the CEO of an international corperation and thinks himself the best practice model, which the others just need to follow. Removed into his own world, becoming a propaganda story for the Bold and the Beautiful – not a best practice, but a spit into the face of the poor. When I think of a best practice model, I want to stress the small but crucial two words, which are tagged to the end of the title of our panel today and make all the difference: “FOR ALL”. This means asking for and demanding a Heavenly Kingdom on Earth, – or what politicians call a turn-around strategy – certainly not in a utopian way, but concrete and tangible. To get there we need to analyse where we are. Therefore now a brief sketch of the current situation of Namibia: Decent employment is a matter of survival for the people in Namibia. According to the latest Social Development report, Namibia holds the sad record of being the most unequal society in the world. Despite having been classified as a lower middle income country, about 2/3 of the Namibian people live below the poverty line. Having a job is a question of “to be or not to be” as there are scarcely any safety nets and virtually no possibilities of making a decent living outside the formal sector. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that despite the long list of calls from all political spheres for large-scale job creation, improvement is nowhere close. According to Namibia’s Labour Force Survey of 2000, 33.8 percent of the population were classified as unemployed. The official statistics by the Ministry of Labour document that unemployment has risen steadily to 36.7 percent by 2004! This distressing situation becomes even more aggravated for younger people as well as for women: Unemployment among teenagers and young adults is dramatic. Among the 15-19-year-olds the unemployment rate is 64.6 percent, and among the 20-24-year-olds it is at 57.4 percent. For the majority of young people, it is the norm to have no chance of any kind of employment. Having any prospect of employment and a future with even a modest source of income is the exception. – Among the unemployed, the majority of people are long-term-unemployed. – The poor have to spend hours securing their survival for the next day with collecting water and firewood and trying to obtain some food. These daily survival strategies absorb time, labour and resources, which otherwise could be used for productive economic purposes. – The daily quest for sheer survival dictates in a way of acting, which will endanger the person’s future health and productive existence. Contracting HIV through commercial sex work, committing crime, as well as the eating of unhealthy food from the dumpsite are just some of the manifold economic examples. – People living in formerly disadvantaged communities still continue to carry a disproportionately high burden of caring for other poor people. This diminishes the chances of the poor to build up their own employment opportunities. (In fact it equals a regressive informal tax on the poor.) Human beings living under bridges, and those who search in dumps for their daily bread are not doing that by choice, but are forced to do so by unjust economic forces and systems combined with human greed. If one is trying to find a solution for all, or at least for a high proportion of the masses, one need to remedy the structural injustices, which perpetuate the ever-increasing unemployment and poverty rates. The trends throughout the last years however show that unemployment is rising, inequality is increasing and with this poverty is worsening. After Independence one of the key strategies of our Government to curb unemployment was to act as an employment creator itself. This was attempted through a labour-based roadworks programme. – This programme was only capable to create short term employment, – The skills development was very much limited with the target set at training four small-scale contractors only. – The creation of employment for 2,500 workers made up less than 1.5 percent of the total of the unemployed. Then Namibia has been following standard economic advice to seek the solutions of its social challenges in public private partnerships (PPPs). The advice by the International Monetary Fund in its latest Country Report is indicative of this approach (IMF, 2007): – Boost private sector development – Increase labour market flexibility – Reduce labour costs – Open the financial markets – Tighten fiscal policies – Cut Namibia’s wage bill. A third strategy lies in the creation of Economic Processing Zones (EPZ) to attract foreign investment. The EPZ jobs accounted for only about 3,6 percent of all jobs and thus did not contribute significantly to reduce Namibia’s high rates of unemployment. People working in such usually low-paid jobs are faced with high insecurities in terms of being replaceable anytime, and they do not become equipped with marketable skills, nor do they earn enough to effectively break out of their poverty circle. In conclusion, one has to acknowledge that economic growth and sound macroeconomic indicators, which Namibia has indeed achieved since Independence, do not necessarily translate into sustained benefits for the poor. So where do I see the path towards a good practice model in Namibia? Initially proposed by a government tax commission, civil society now actively advocates a Basic Income Grant in Namibia. The proposal contains the following suggestion: A monthly cash grant of not less than N$100 (~US$14) should be paid to every Namibian citizen as a citizen’s right up to pensionable age, from when onwards he/she is eligible to the already existing universal State Old Age Pension of N$370 (~US$53) . The money of people not in need or not in poverty would be recuperated through adjustments in the tax system. The Basic Income Grant is more than an income support programme. It provides security that reinforces human dignity and empowerment. It has the capacity to be the most significant poverty-reducing programme in Namibia, while supporting household development, economic growth and job creation at the same time. The cost is ranging from 2.2 percent to 3.8 percent of national income. A tax effort analysis as well as other models have proven that Namibia has the capacity to mobilise the necessary resources without undermining its international competitiveness. Over time, Namibia’s economy will benefit from the long-term growth-impact of the Basic Income Grant. The next theses summarise the developmental and in fact employment-creating effects of the BIG: – A BIG, by being a universal programme, frees from the dependency on income insecurity, and thereby is primarily not a welfare programme, but an empowerment programme for economic activity. – The BIG would bring crucial resources into households, which are infected and affected by HIV. – A BIG is an effective tool for lowering the regressive informal tax on the poor. Money of the working poor would be freed for economic investment. – A BIG of N$100 per month per person will generate a net-benefit of over N$900 million a year reaching the rural communities in Namibia. – A BIG provides for the necessary resources to successfully enter the job market. – The BIG is a tool towards rectifying market distortions and towards the realisation of decent work. It has become clear that the just cause of employment and decent work for all is not a question of trying to change the behaviour of people, who are held responsible for their own misery. Government needs to be aware of its role as being a people’s government, which needs to rectify the structural question and which must not implicitly or explicitly blame the people, but be an agent and an ambassador of change against current destructive powers. A structural problem needs a structural solution. Employment creation programmes in the form of public works are important, but in a situation where the structural imbalances are not redressed, they only offer piece-meal solutions. Just like sending an ambulance to rush from one accident to the other, but without looking at road safety measures. Most importantly, we need to accept that it is the objective of the private sector in a market economy to generate profits – not jobs! It is an illusion that without structural policy interventions, the private sector would take an interest in changing the structure in which it currently makes its profits. A redistributive programme in the form of a Basic Income Grant is a prerequisite for effectively promoting employment and decent work on a large scale in Namibia. Two main features are key: Firstly, it would curb abject mass poverty and free people from the destructive circle of the survival economy by giving them income security. Secondly, it would redistribute wealth to the majority of people, where it is most effective to foster both, investment and demand. A Basic Income Grant forms a crucial platform for other important interventions by a developmental state to be effective. In order to achieve decent work for all, the measures building on and being implemented in conjunction with the BIG, should include: – Control of capital outflow – Improved and enforced labour standards without exceptions – Improved and enforced environmental standards without exceptions – Trade protection for SME – Local growth strategies, which do not allow local vested interest to create monopoly situations – Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) must be in line with labour standards and must not be allowed to exploit labour and national resources just for their quick profit. FDI needs to be linked to local technological development and be in line with regional long term development plans – Trade agreements and bilateral co-operations must be carefully evaluated against their local economic impact – Savings and loan schemes for the poor – Protection against excessive private debt. In the light of the above, the BIG Coalition in Namibia has decided that it is high time to introduce a BIG in Namibia. Therefore, the BIG Coalition plans to raise funds for the introduction of the BIG as a pilot in one specific area in Namibia for only a limited period of time, to be able to show the positive aspects of a BIG and to prove that it is indeed feasible! Thank you very much! Bishop Dr. Kameeta delivered this presentation to the United Nations Commission for Social Development 45th session, 7-16 February, 2007, in New York, USA.