Rich resources from poor communities: An analysis of Namibia's access and benefit-sharing legislation

Abstract

Since pre-independence, Namibia has faced wealth disparities and unfair distribution of benefits arising from natural resources. Producers, who hold traditional knowledge related to genetic resources, continue to endure poverty. In response, the Government of Namibia collaborated with various stakeholders to develop access and benefit-sharing policies and regulations. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of access and benefit-sharing legislation in distributing monetary and non-monetary benefits from users of non-timber forest products to indigenous and local communities who produce them. To achieve this, we integrated the access and benefit-sharing approaches with the value chain framework to identify gaps in the implementation of benefit-sharing. We employed a mixed-methods approach, incorporating semi-structured interviews, participation in symposiums, and statistical data analysis. Our findings revealed that despite the established legislative measures aimed at improving the benefits for Namibian producers, the actual sharing of the benefits remains unsatisfactory. Only a few communities that harvest non-timber forest products had benefit-sharing agreements or joint patent ownership with global or regional industries. Moreover, the San communities, who received incentives from the Devil's Claw manufacturer in 2021, did not enter into any benefit-sharing agreements until March 2023. We suggest that the recently implemented access and benefit-sharing regulations may not fully address the benefit-sharing issues overlooked by previous policies and initiatives. Therefore, we recommend further studies in exploring the potential of establishing efficient non-timber forest product processing facilities to economically empower communities. This, will ultimately contribute to national economic growth and the achievement of sustainable development goals.