The Green Hydrogen Programme recently hosted a panel discussion to delve into the potential socio-economic benefits of the local green hydrogen industry.
The event, held in collaboration with the Bank of Namibia and the Namibia Statistics Agency, focused on the theme “An Economic Outlook: Assessing the Socio-Economic Benefits of Namibia’s Green Hydrogen Industry.”
The panel discussion provided valuable insights into how green hydrogen can drive sustainable economic growth and social advancement across Namibia.
The government’s commitment to fostering sustainable development has led to prioritising the competitive production of green hydrogen (GH2) as one of the key drivers for socio-economic transformation.
Sustainable GH2 production has the potential to diversify the economy, create employment, reduce poverty, and address income inequality.
The keynote address was delivered by, Obeth Kandjoze, the Director General of the National Planning Commission highlighting the alignment of the Green Hydrogen Programme with the socioeconomic goals and current initiatives to address challenges within the framework.
“This initiative also aligns with our environmental goals, contributing to global decarbonisation efforts while fostering economic resilience at home,” he noted.
He further spoke on the findings of the research “Today, we will gain invaluable insights from the Ex-ante Socioeconomic Impact Assessment. This rigorous analysis provides a roadmap for understanding the tangible benefits of green hydrogen for our communities. The models employed reveal not only economic growth projections but also the human stories behind the numbers, stories of opportunities for families, small businesses, and young professionals,” he emphasized.
The panel discussion brought together stakeholders from government, private sector, and civil society to discuss the Ex-ante Socioeconomic Impact Assessment results, highlighting the socioeconomic advantages of green hydrogen development.
The assessment leverages advanced economic modelling techniques, specifically a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model paired with a Household Microsimulation (HM) Model, to forecast the anticipated impacts of current and future investments within the broader GH2 landscape on Namibia’s economy and society.
Moderated by Ricardo Goagoseb, the panel included James Mnyupe, Namibia’s Green Hydrogen Commissioner; Mwala Lubinda, Lecturer at the Namibia University of Science and Technology and Associate Researcher at MONASA Advisories; Dr. Theopolina Kapani, Head of Technical and Construction at the Namibia Green Hydrogen Programme; Dr. Eline van der Linden, Head of Impact and ESG at the Namibia Green Hydrogen Programme and Dr. Zivayi Chiguvare, Acting Director of
the Namibia Green Hydrogen Research Institute.
Mnyupe eluded that, the emerging GH2 ecosystem has the potential to diversify Namibia’s economy and propel us all closer to the goals embodied in Vision 2030 and spoke on, the importance of the assessment “While we’re solving for opportunities that we know exist, we do need a model like the one presented, that is live and we can tweak and teach as real business cases begin to show themselves in Namibia. Whenever you try to problem solve for how can this industry thrive in
Namibia, you also have to compare how it will thrive against an industry in Morrocco, Mauritania, Egypt, and South Africa, so as we shape our strategy and our industry, we’re studying for competitors in absolute and relative terms,” he stated.
Kapani further shared insight on the infrastructure development across different sectors “To derisk the sector and also to lower the barriers of entry, what we envision to do is build out what we call common user infrastructure, these are shared infrastructures such as the hydrogen pipelines, ammonia pipelines, desalination plants as well as port infrastructure really to derisk the sector and attract investments into the green hydrogen sector and also to minimize the environment impacts of each developer potentially building up their infrastructure” she stated.
Van der Linden spoke on equal distribution of the benefits ”We don’t expect immediate entry into the market for those who are underskilled and under-resourced, but we do believe that as employment increases for those who are a little better resourced and who do have some of the knowledge and some of the skills, we will see some trickle-down effects in the economy, and we believe that as the economy grows, we will see higher fiscal income so there will be more fiscal
space,” she noted.
Lastly, Chiguvare addressed the importance of the research and the role of researchers “We want to shock the system by introducing green hydrogen which was not used for the purposes that we are now thinking of and we did not have it as green, research institutions contribute through conducting research on how the system will respond and this now allows us to make plans in terms of looking at various scenarios that allow us to say, in two years, how will this fail in Namibia
and globally and in five years and one hundred years, we need to plan one hundred years, without system modelings like this ECG, you can not do it, ” he mentioned.
The session provided the attendees with an overview of the assessment methodology, including the expanded 2019 SAM, CGE model assumptions such as market behavior, production technologies, potential external shocks, and HM model considerations addressing household heterogeneity and income distribution.
Through this collaborative engagement, stakeholders gained an understanding of how these economic models project the social and economic impacts of GH2 development. Facilitated by Lubinda and Schade, the key findings revealed that the Namibia Green Industrialisation Agenda (NGIA) could potentially create about 120k additional employment opportunities during the investment phase, and sustain 30k job opportunities per year during the operational phase. The NGIA could potentially add about N$129bn additional GDP during the investment phase, and N$177 billion additional per year during the operational phase. The NGIA could potentially increase household income by about N$99.4 billion during the investment phase and N$87.9 billion per year during the operational phase,” he remarked.
The discussion is also geared towards providing the public as well as the stakeholders with an overview of the methodology used, specifically focusing on expanding the 2019 SAM, the CGE model assumptions such as market behaviour, production technologies, and external shocks, and the HM model assumptions including household heterogeneity and income distribution. The socialization process provided stakeholders with a clear understanding of how these models
work together to simulate the economic and social impacts of the GH2 strategy.
The discussion affirmed Namibia’s dedication to transparency and stakeholder inclusivity as the country pursues an ambitious green hydrogen strategy that promises substantial long-term benefits for its citizens and economy.