Namibians will soon know if the country is ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) amid indications that a team set up to investigate Namibia’s readiness will submit its findings to Cabinet at the end of the month.
“I don’t know when exactly the report will be released to the public but around the end of July we will hand in the final report,” 4IR Task Force Chair and University of Namibia (Unam) Pro-Vice Chancellor Anicia Peters told The Brief.
“However, when those recommendations will be implemented, I cannot say as this is something Cabinet decides. We have seen with other various high-level panels on the economy that those recommendations are still being implemented, thus we see that the recommendations of whatever report you are tabling have consequences and are not going to gather dust.”
The 4IR task force was appointed by President Hage Geingob in July 2021 to serve for a year until 30 June 2022.
The eight-member team was established under the Economic Advancement Pillar of the Harambee Prosperity Plan II and to assist the Government in harnessing the full potential presented by the confluence of technologies for the Future of Work and the socio-economic development of Namibia.
Peters said Namibia needed to capitalise on new technologies as the Fifth Industrial Revolution approaches.
“The relevance of the report is not going to be long and thus we better make haste to sort of try and get the country to benefit from these technologies because there are new ones coming and we are of course going into the fifth industrial revolution then we want to say we didn’t even complete the 4th one,” she said.
“We want to look back at the report and what recommendations were made 40 years from now, and I hope it was building the foundation for that to be robust enough to handle whatever shifts in technology arise, as I believe that is the crux of the matter. This is a lengthy process, and if you want to automate, you should probably automate in the manufacturing sector. However, as you are automating, someone needs to design, build, operate, and maintain the technology in the same way that you are now using technology to solve that problem.”
Peters, however, said concern about the 4IR increasing the unemployment rate are unsubstantiated.
“Most technologies and subsequent operations will require human labour, and there will be numerous new jobs created. It takes a long time to build those systems, and while you are building them, you must also ensure that you are upscaling and rescaling. We should take the same approach as Namibians and take our destiny into our own hands, and if we decide to automate, we should also make a conscious decision to educate our own people, maintain those systems, and create new jobs and employ ourselves rather than bringing employment from elsewhere,” she said.
Other members of the task force include Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), Vice Chancellor, Erold Naomab; Senior Economist at Bank of Namibia (BON), Grace Hamauka; SME Executive at Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB), Dino Balloti; Unam, Vice Chancellor, Kenneth Matengu; Internet Society of Namibia’s Nashilongo Gervasius; University of Johannesburg Vice Chancellor, Tshilidzi Marwala, and Deloitte’s Africa and Emerging Markets Managing Director, Martyn Davies.
