Namibia’s new oil, gas and green hydrogen frontier is real—but discovery is not development. Without early fiscal rules, contract discipline, and institutions that can spend well, Namibia risks exporting value while importing volatility.
Namibia has earned credibility through fiscal discipline, a hard exchange-rate anchor, and regulatory caution. Yet the same posture now risks suppressing strategic experimentation—precisely as climate stress, energy dependence, and commodity substitution intensify. The next decade will reward states that can govern uncertainty, not merely avoid it.
Congo‑Brazzaville’s defining feature is not volatility but stasis: political continuity has stabilised the state while limiting institutional depth and economic transformation. With oil dominance, persistent execution gaps, and debt management fragilities, stability risks becoming an end in itself. This note outlines why the country lacks a development trajectory—and what DFIs and sovereign partners should prioritise.
Many strategies in emerging markets do not fail loudly. They drift, stall, and underperform — not because governance is absent, but because it is misaligned. This article examines how institutional friction quietly erodes investment outcomes across infrastructure, banking, energy, and digital systems — and why investors consistently underestimate the cost of governance latency.
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