The second Namibia-EU Business Forum, taking place in Windhoek from 11 to 13 May 2026, presents itself as a transition point – from political declarations of intent towards a more implementation-driven framework for industry and investment.
Contributions by Jessika Roswall, the EU Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, alongside an official media statement and discussions during a hydrogen workshop held as part of the forum, reveal a common pattern: high, and at times unrealistic, strategic ambition meeting operational limitations.
Roswall described the current global environment as shaped by “geopolitical upheaval and economic uncertainty” and stressed that only “close cooperation based on trust and equality” could create stability. At the same time, the partnership framework has been extended. The EU-Namibia Roadmap approach will now continue until 2030, with a particular focus on turning green hydrogen and critical raw materials into concrete industrial projects.
Era of pilot projects is over - Reflecting a broader shift in tone, Roswall made it clear that the era of pilot projects had ended. “We must move beyond feasibility studies and deliver concrete economic results – factories, jobs and income,” she said.
An accompanying statement by the EU spokesperson in Namibia, Twaku Kayofa, framed this in economic terms. The EU remains one of Namibia’s most important trading partners, with trade volumes reaching N$17.6 billion in 2025 and more than 46,000 jobs linked to EU exports. The objective, according to the statement, is to strengthen local value addition and integrate Namibia more deeply into global supply chains. Roswall described this as a move away from the traditional raw-material export model. “We are moving away from extractive models towards cleaner industries and sustainable supply chains,” she noted.
Hyphen project highlights challenges - Yet discussions during the Hyphen hydrogen workshop highlighted the more difficult side of this transformation. The project, with an estimated investment value of around €10 billion and a local procurement target of 30.6%, illustrates both the scale of the potential economic impact and the complexity of implementation.
The focus therefore shifted away from vision and towards bottlenecks: access to finance, missing industrial capacity, weak supply chains and coordination challenges within the local ecosystem. As one participant noted, “Local content alone is not enough – we need to understand and solve the real structural bottlenecks.” The discussion made clear that the main obstacles lie less in political alignment than in Namibia’s still limited implementation capacity.
Decisions and partnerships emerging from the forum are therefore likely to continue facing the implementation deficits that have characterised Namibia for years. By yesterday, a broader picture had begun to emerge: the Namibia-EU partnership defines the strategic framework through to 2030, while participants and media coverage emphasise trade, employment creation and investment. Yet industries – and the people expected to implement these ideas – face limits shaped in part by Namibia’s own trade policies.
Namibia, therefore, finds itself, like only a small number of African countries, simultaneously at the centre of a far-reaching European transformation project while still being in the early stages of building the industrial capacity and institutional willingness required to meet these expectations. The second partnership forum appears less like a completed success story than a broader reality check.
