Erasmus Shalihaxwe

National Planning Commission (NPC) director general Kaire Mbuende, said Green Hydrogen is not a petty project as it was perceived before but the new source of income and the diversification of the country’s economy from traditional economic sectors like mining, agriculture and so forth.

Mbuende made these remarks this week during a panel discussion at the Global African Hydrogen Summit that took place in Windhoek for three days.

He said the Namibian government is expecting a lot from the new sector in terms of employment creation, development of technology and so on.

According to Mbuende, the role of the National Planning Commission in the implementation of Green Hydrogen is to ensure that there is synergy in alignment with the country’s overall national development program.
‘’There are specific infrastructures that are needed by particular industries like mining, oil and gas and of course the green hydrogen. But all of these have be aligned. Therefore, for us is to ensure there is common use of infrastructures that can be used by different sectors of the economy.

As a coordinator of the country’s development, we have to ensure that all the interests of all the economic sectors are taken into account, and they are also integrated to generate value addition,’’ said Mbuende.
He added that the national development plan launched this year, positions green industrialisation as a pillar for social economic transformation, by setting bold targets for renewable energy transformation with green hydrogen introduction and value addition through industries such as green ammonia, clean steel and clean fuel. 

‘’Critically, the plan is designed to capture value along the entire green hydrogen value chain. From production, storage to localisation of mining and manufacturing. Our approach is deliberate, we are not content to be exporters of raw molecules. We are committed to building industries, creating jobs and empowering communities,’’ he said.

Minister of Industries, Mines and Energy Natangue Ithete, said even if the country is seeing massive investments in the new sectors, it will not make sense if the investments do not benefit local people.

‘’While the flagship projects such as Hyphen Green hydrogen, Daures Green Hydrogen, Oshivela Iron and Clean Solutions are achieving remarkable milestones, our work is not done if the youth in our villages cannot point to the impacts of those projects in their lives. We will fail in our efforts if we cannot tell our parents at the community level how many jobs we have created,’’ said Ithete.

While contributing to the discussion, European Union (EU) ambassador to Namibia Ana Martins, said for all the 27 EU member states, the target is to reach zero carbon emission by 20250, and the green hydrogen is part of the projects that will make the dream come true.

She said the EU have several strategic partnerships with African countries in the green hydrogen project with countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Kenya and Namibia. Thus, the EU is happy with the partnership with Namibia as it was the first one and it is going well.

‘’We are very proud of the partnership we have with Namibia, it was the first strategic partnership on green hydrogen and critical raw materials. We are collaborating with Namibia in what we call 360 days, which is not only to provide finance to companies like HyIron and others but we are also funding and supporting the regulatory framework,’’ said Martins.