Analysis and Options for Namibia's Medium-Term Debt Strategy
Since gaining its independence 23 years ago, Namibia has established an enviable track record of political stability, prudent macroeconomic policies, moderate growth, poverty reduction, and natural resource conservation. The country has achieved th...
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| Format: | Other Poverty Study |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/17931552/analysis-options-namibias-medium-term-debt-strategy http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16074 |
| Summary: | Since gaining its independence 23 years
ago, Namibia has established an enviable track record of
political stability, prudent macroeconomic policies,
moderate growth, poverty reduction, and natural resource
conservation. The country has achieved these gains while
facing constraints imposed by geography, legacies of
apartheid and colonialism, and the challenges of
constructing a national government. Daunting challenges
remain, however. Namibia suffers from chronic high
unemployment, the ravages of HIV/AIDS, and one of the world
most skewed distributions of income. The structure of the
economy has remained fundamentally unchanged since
Independence: minerals and metals make up the majority of
exports; the public sector remains the largest employer; and
there has been little investment in labor-intensive
manufacturing, which in many countries has absorbed
low-skilled labor exiting traditional agriculture. This
report uses the Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy (MTDS)
framework developed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the World Bank to analyze options facing the GRN as it
prepares the new Sovereign Debt Management Strategy (SDMS).
This framework emphasizes the explicit analysis of relative
costs and risks in a debt management strategy, the linkages
between the debt strategy and other macroeconomic policies,
and the strategy's consistency with debt
sustainability. The report opens with a review of the
GRN's current debt management strategy, the sources of
financing available to the government, and the macroeconomic
environment. The report then applies the MTDS analytical
tool to analyze costs and risks of alternative debt
management strategies that were developed by MOF
participants in the November 2012 capacity-building
exercise. It also examines domestic debt market development
and contingent liabilities arising from government
guarantees, two issues of special concern to the GRN.
Finally, it discusses institutional arrangements and
implementation issues. |
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