Namibia is seeking to link its emerging green hydrogen industry with South Africa’s industrial and energy value chains as it looks to develop regional markets, attract investment and create demand for green products produced in Southern Africa.
Joseph Mukendwa, Interim Head of the Namibia Green Hydrogen Programme, said Namibia cannot develop its planned green hydrogen and downstream industries in isolation and needs stronger regional integration to support projects at scale.
“I think for us as Namibia, as I indicated, the bigger play is green industrialisation. And I must admit that we cannot do that if we just look at Namibia developing these projects alone,” Mukendwa said ahead of the African Green Hydrogen Summit in Cape Town.
Namibia is positioning green hydrogen as an energy input for broader industrial development, with regional cooperation seen as critical to creating markets and value chains capable of supporting large-scale projects.
Mukendwa said South Africa could become an important partner in building an integrated Southern African green industrial economy.
“So it’s also important that as we are coming here to South Africa, we talk about regional collaboration, regional integration, how Namibia and South Africa can work together and be the champions of SADC regional green industrialisation,” he said.
Closer integration could allow projects developed in Namibia and South Africa to complement each other rather than compete independently for investment, infrastructure and international markets.
Mukendwa said jointly developing projects could also strengthen SADC’s position as a supplier of green products to markets seeking to decarbonise their industrial supply chains.
“Because if we can hold hands and develop projects in both these countries, I think we are in a better stance or in a better position to be able to meaningfully create opportunities for our people and produce green products that not only the region or the African continent but internationally they are looking for,” he said.
The push comes as international financing for African green hydrogen and industrial projects continues to grow.
The Cape Town summit has seen €20 million in European Union grant funding committed to South Africa, with the potential to mobilise a further €200 million from KfW. A further €37 million has been committed through the Global Gateway for South Africa.
The African Development Bank has also announced US$20 million in reimbursable grant funding for four projects across Namibia, South Africa, Morocco and Egypt.
The commitments could support Africa’s efforts to move green hydrogen projects towards implementation while developing downstream industries and capturing more value from the continent’s renewable energy resources.
The African Green Hydrogen Summit follows Namibia’s hosting of the Africa Green Industries Summit, where policymakers, investors and industry leaders focused on renewable energy, green hydrogen, infrastructure, financing and local value addition.
Mukendwa said Namibia would use the Cape Town summit to engage investors and other stakeholders on challenges facing projects and identify solutions needed to advance the country’s green industrialisation plans.
“So we look forward to the next couple of days to engage all these various stakeholders and share with them some of the challenges that we’ve experienced and then try and find a way to craft together solutions that will see Namibia drive its green industrialisation ambitions further,” he said.
