The unemployment rate in Namibia was 33.4% in 2018, the most recent data available. It is really concerning that Namibia has a high rate of unemployment, especially for young people. A shift in the population that results in more young people joining the workforce exacerbates it. In 2018, the rate of youth unemployment was 46.1%. Compared to the global average of 17.2%, this is nearly three times greater (Republic of Namibia, 2023).The Namibian economy's structure is the main source of the high unemployment rate, although a combination of national and international issues exacerbates it. The Namibian Journal for Social Justice, Volume 3, is devoted to the topics of employment, livelihoods, and the workplace. The worldwide replication of the livelihood crisis has resulted in displacement and widespread movement both inside and between continents and nations. Volume 3 examines several facets of work and subsistence. The implications of unemployment and underemployment for human rights; the right to a livelihood; technology and livelihoods; unionization; the informalization of employment and livelihoods; migration; climate change; and the utilization of natural resources for livelihoods and job creation are a few of these. Writers in a variety of academic journals, case studies, opinion pieces, and artistic works discuss important facets of work and lifestyles in Namibia. The general public does not always have access to or knowledge of the wealth of Namibian-based research and writing; in this edition, we offer a book review on anthropology in Namibia. Every essay addresses the questions considering employment and means of subsistence from the standpoint of social justice, which covers issues of participation, equality, rights, and access.
Published date: 10 November, 2023
In this edition of the Namibian Journal of Social Justice, we grapple with Namibia’s most urgent social justice question, namely inequality. Despite being classified as a higher middle-income country, levels of marginalisation and exclusion in Namibia remain very high. The Human Development Index (HDI) for 2019 was 0.646, ranking at 130 out of 189 countries. The IHDI (inequality-adjusted HDI) falls to 0.418, however, a loss of 35.3% (cf. an average loss for medium HDI countries of 26.3%). This profound level of inequality is consistent with Namibia’s unflattering Gini coefficient ranking (a measure of income inequality) of second-highest in the world (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2022; World Bank Group, 2021; Human Development Report, 2020). Namibia, like most of southern Africa, is still trapped in an unequal economic development model, and hence displays persistently high levels of inequality. This inequality affects groups differentially, depending on their social class, race, gender, ethnicity and geographic location. The multi- dimensional nature of inequality is revealed in unequal access to productive resources, particularly arable land; unequal wealth ownership; highly skewed levels of income; unequal access Editorial to housing, education, health care and other services; a lack of comprehensive social security coverage; high levels of unemployment, informal employment, and wage inequality; differential and unequal access to labour rights; and persistent racism (World Bank Group, 2021; Martin, 2022; Stiglitz, 2015).
Published date: 09 November, 2022
Welcome to the first edition of the Namibian Journal of Social Justice (NJSJ). We are proud to present this new journal and hope it will make a meaningful contribution to the debates on social and economic justice in Namibia. The background and motivation for this journal is the fact that Namibia continues to be one of the world’s most unequal nations caused, firstly, by colonialism and then by the neoliberal policies of the postcolonial State. The elite transition in post-colonial Namibia reflects what occurred throughout Africa. Local elites joined global elites to produce and reproduce intellectuals who seek to justify, rationalise, and normalise the neo-colonial order at the core of the current inequalities. Such neoliberal intellectuals dominate the intellectual space inside the state, academia and civil society. They form an elite compact to maintain their hegemony and the neoliberal order.
Published date: 21 July, 2021
Socio-Economic Justice
Published date: 11 November, 2023
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