How Namibia is advancing gender equality through leadership and policy

What you need to know:

• Namibia’s eighth-place ranking in the 2025 Global Gender Gap Index reflects years of progressive policies, women’s political representation and sustained efforts to mainstream gender equality across government.
• President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has strengthened women’s representation in top leadership, but gender-based violence, unequal land ownership and wage disparities continue to undermine equality.
• Persistent economic and social inequalities highlight the need for further reforms.

That Namibia has been ranked eighth best performing country with regard to gender equality in the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Index is definitely good news for Africa. A quick conclusion would be that this is due to the female dominated leadership since the ascension to power of Dr Nandi-Ndaitwah in March 2025.

That is both right and wrong. Right because the president is a strong advocate for gender equality, who has publicly called for a woman to be elected as United Nations secretary-general, expanding her commitment to the global stage. Wrong because she inherited a system that had set in motion a trajectory of transformation, informed by progressive policies and genuine concern for people-centred development.

Dr Nandi-Ndaitwah sent an unprecedented message on assuming power that women can and should also be at the top. She did this by appointing a fellow woman as her deputy, and a cabinet in which the majority were women: eight out of 14. Thus, she demonstrated that leadership is about knowledge, skills and experience, not biology.

Namibia also has a female speaker of parliament. The net effect is that women are positioned in powerful and influential dockets where their decisions determine government priorities. The population of women in top leadership obviously has a profound role-modelling effect.

But predating this has been a consistent policy focus on gender equality, driven by the Ministry of Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare. For instance, Namibia has, since 1998, applied its Affirmative Action Act to create gender parity in employment and wages.

Moreover, the county has the parliamentary standing committee on gender equality, health and social welfare, which reviews legislation on discrimination, monitors implementation, examines compliance with international commitments to gender equality, and makes recommendations to parliament.

The National Gender Equality and Equity Policy (2025–35) and its previous versions are not decorative documents but reference points in ensuring that gender is mainstreamed across all sectors and not compartmentalised to a ministry or department. That the president advocates policy implementation gives it gravitas and creates a sense of accountability among technocrats.

A notable policy with multiplier effect is that of free primary and secondary education, which has translated into gender parity within the 90 per cent enrolment rate. Namibia’s political system also uses measures that promote women's participation in leadership. In addition, gender-responsive budgeting is used to direct resources to equitable socioeconomic development. The key lesson here is that sustained and meaningful mainstreaming of gender yields results.

But this is not to say that Namibia is a gender equality paradise. Gender-based violence remains a major social problem in the country. The 2023 Namibia Demographic and Health Survey found that 33 per cent of women aged 15–49 have experienced physical violence since the age of 15 and 15 per cent of women of the same cohort have been exposed to sexual violence.

The survey found that women constitute 81 per cent of the victims of gender-based violence, the prevalence of which is associated with unequal gender power relations, poverty and unemployment, abuse of alcohol and other substances and harmful traditional practices.

The last include child marriages, initiation rites that emphasise marriage and motherhood instead of education, traditional sexual practices tantamount to sexual exploitation and abuse, widow inheritance and polygamous unions that subjugate women.

Land ownership in Namibia is still largely in the hands of men by virtue of patriarchal customary laws and practices, which automate male ownership and custody of ancestral assets. Yet women constitute about 59 per cent of the labour on agricultural land. Even ownership of commercial land is male dominated. Women also frequently lose land upon widowhood or due to dysfunctional marriages. This happens despite legal reforms to eradicate the same.

As noted in the 2025 report, “men’s income rose more significantly than women’s, leading to higher income disparity.” This is evident in the gender wage gap of about 11.45 in favour of men. Moreover, gender parity in workforce representation did not change since the last edition. In fact, employment data shows that women are mostly visible in informal sector activities, low-wage services, subsistence agriculture and domestic and care work, while men dominate the better paying occupations in mining, construction, commercial farming and corporate leadership.

Women are also underrepresented in ownership of large economic enterprises. Although the country maintains full parity in educational attainment, enrolment in tertiary education decreased for both males and females, especially the latter.

The global positioning of Namibia must thus be celebrated but also be considered a wake-up call for better performance in sustaining the gains and eradicating the remaining pockets of inequality. Often, these global measures rely on aggregate quantitative data that sometimes mask the qualitative realities and disparities faced by people on the ground.

The writer is a lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at South Eastern Kenya University ([email protected]).