The Republic of Namibia has ranked in the top 10 of Africa’s most attractive countries for mining investment over the past five years by the Fraser Institute. Namibia is the world’s fifth largest producer of uranium and the ninth largest producer of diamonds.
Capital: Windhoek
Geographical size: 824,292 km²
Population: 2.280 716 (2015) 2.778 798 (2020)
GDP: 12.99 billion US dollars (2014) 14.52 billion US dollars (2018)
Official language(s): English, however many Namibians speak indigenous languages and dialects
Political system: Republic
Currency: NAD pegged to ZAR
The ethnic population consists of the Ovambo, Kavangos, Herero, Damara, Nama, Caprivian and Bushmen. Since independence, the Namibian Government has pursued free-market economic principles designed to promote commercial development and job creation. To facilitate this goal, the government has actively sought donor assistance and foreign investment.
Political stability and prudent fiscal management have helped anchor Namibia’s high growth rates and poverty reduction efforts. With strong ties to South Africa, Namibia has stronger competitiveness and investment attraction than average sub-Saharan countries.
Namibia has made progress reducing geographical income disparities despite its largely arid climate, extremely low population density and an economy where a highly productive capital intensive mining sector operates alongside an agriculture sector that is of low productivity but a major employer. Thanks to the government’s Vision 2030 and national development plans, Namibia saw a 40% reduction in poverty by 2010.
Currently, Namibia allocates more than 20% of its national budget to education (6-7% of Namibia's total GDP) and is one of the three countries with the highest percentage of GDP directed toward education in the world.