Namibia is doing very well in terms of digital transformation as evidenced by it achieving the regional target before its due date, Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Emma Theofelus, has said.

The deputy minister was speaking on the opening day of the 2022 Ministerial Forum for Developing Africa’s Digital Economy in Cape Town, South Africa on Monday, where she was part of a panel discussion on Africa’s progress in digital transformation.

“In 2015, we met the Southern African Development Community (SADC) target of 67 per cent digital transformation through the digital terrestrial broadcasting rollout. That target is even higher today. What that came with is that it allowed broadcasting to be much clearer and the radio transmission to improve drastically,” she said.

She added that 98 per cent of Namibia’s population listens to the radio, and this (digital transformation) allowed broadcasters to have interactive broadcasting, which led to improved access to information and communication between those that give and those that receive the information.

Theofelus noted that this transformation also allowed the growth of the broadcasting spectrum through the creation of more frequencies.

“It also improved our spectrum efficiency and this continues to be part of the bigger picture around digital transformation and this is why, as Namibia, we are continuing to develop policies and laws that allow us to seamlessly transition to more efficient emerging technologies,” she explained.

On where Namibia could fast track its digital transformation, the deputy minister said Namibia has a lot of public-private partnerships which have worked very well in projects and programmes in other fields, but not in the digital space.

“We can replicate this easily in the digital world because it has been successful in other sectors. These are sustainable and equitable partnerships, which will stimulate the economy and give fertile ground for proper decisions to be made, especially at the government level,” she explained.

Theofelus said Namibia is currently looking at the Data Protection Bill and Cyber Security Bill to support E-Health, E-Parliament and E-Registration.

She hailed Namibia’s Access to Information Bill, saying it has given civil society information to advocate for areas where the government is failing, while allowing the youth to access information to grow innovation and add value to the resources of the country without jeopardising national security.

The five-day Ministerial Forum for Developing Africa’s Digital Economy is part of the Africa Digital Technical Festival which will conclude on Friday, held under the theme; ‘Rise stronger with the digital economy: New paths towards resilient recovery’.

The deputy minister is accompanied by the information ministry’s Executive Director, Audrin Mathe.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency