Namibia’s plan for industrialisation, Growth at Home, was adopted in early 2015. The 52-page policy guide represented a clear interventionist-turn in the government’s economic policy. As if to indicate the new approach, the Ministry of Trade and Industry was renamed the Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development (MITSMED) in the same year. But since then the contribution of manufacturing to total gross domestic product (GDP) has been disappointing and the implementation of government’s industrial policy has been cumbersome and largely fruitless. This briefing paper investigates why government, and particularly the MITSMED, has not been able to back up its rhetorical commitment to industrialisation and suggests ways in which effective industrial policy could still have a transformative impact on Namibia.
