Monitoring and evaluation of our development agenda

Arminda Hepute

As the year 2026 draws to a close, it is important to step back and review the National Development Plans and developmental policies introduced to ensure that our commitments align with our national achievements.

As a Namibian youth diplomat in the diaspora, I am interested to see Namibia succeeding in implementing plans to address youth unemployment, which stands at 44.4%, the rising cost of living, and soaring energy prices.

One of the key priorities for Namibia’s national development, highlighted in the 2025 Africa Peer Review Mechanism governance report, is investment in institutional coordination and the availability of reliable data and statistics for monitoring and evaluation.

These measures are essential for tracking development progress. It is therefore prudent, as implementation of the ambitious and promising National Development Plan 6 entered its second year, to examine the key efforts being made to monitor progress on the country’s development plan.

Why monitoring and evaluation?

Development scholars such as Thandeka Mkandawire have argued that economic and social development must be understood beyond theories and political rhetoric and good intentions.

Mkandawire argued that progress or stagnation in policies and proposed projects must be demonstrated through statistical evidence which are produced through monitoring and evaluation.

This raises an important question to our professionals in the public sector in their advisory roles and during project-site visits, about how these professionals report their findings to the government, and how we can build the confidence of the Namibian people.

Monitoring and evaluating development projects is essential to answering these questions.

As an optimist, I strongly believe that development in Namibia and improved quality of life for Namibians by 2030 are achievable.

We can make progress by working together to collect development data, acknowledging our shortcomings, and revising strategies that are no longer effective.

Namibia’s small population can also be an advantage: compared with our resources and ambitions, it can make collaboration and coordination easier. However, this will only be possible if we work together.

With 2027 around the corner, it is important to recognize that the monitoring and evaluation methods used in our development projects should also guide our assessment of Namibia’s democratic development.

We should examine the structure of our political parties and ask whether we are ready to collaborate for the good of the country or remain trapped in a politics of friends and enemies.

As we begin monitoring our development progress, we must look beyond technical measures and embrace self-reflection and institutional introspection.

Way forward

Looking ahead, I believe we have reached a moment when we may pause and consider whether we are on the right track or if we are walking down the wrong path.

Are we busy doing anything, or are we doing the wrong thing?

As we conclude this year 2026, let us look ahead to 2027 with the hope that we will no longer focus on conferences discussing hope and aspirations, but rather on reports on how national finance was used, how many Namibians were lifted out of poverty, and what an individual contribution to national development is.

In the end, I’d like to emphasize that through my international development career in the diaspora, I have learned one thing: patriotism.

While it is our responsibility to question the central government about what it has done, we should also question ourselves about what we have done this year that makes ourselves proud, and what we can evaluate and improve in the future.

The monitoring and evaluation principles shall be applied beyond NDP6 and it must come down to the self and how we measure our progress when it comes to self improvement.

With cooperation, we will indeed find ourselves and be proud of ourselves if we find the true meaning of measuring progress.

*Arminda Hepute, global business symposium delegate, a young leader from Opuwo with interests in humanitarian affairs, international development and global leadership.