UN Environment is supporting Namibia to develop appropriate policies and instruments to improve the average fuel economy of the national light-duty vehicle fleet. The scope and intended outcomes of the project were discussed at the first stakeholder meeting on 4 June 2019 in Windhoek, Namibia.
The stakeholder meeting brought together transport sector stakeholders drawn from government, private sector, and academia. In the meeting, it emerged that despite having a relatively small population of 2.5 million inhabitants, the country has 385,485 vehicles as of March 2018, signifying a high motorization level. Over 44% of the national vehicle fleet is found in the capital city – Windhoek. In contrast to many African countries, motorcycles make a paltry 1% of the fleet population. The project focus on light duty vehicle fuel economy improvement is therefore a timely intervention as 86% of the total vehicle fleet are light duty vehicles. The Kenyan case of conducting the fuel economy study was also presented in the meeting to aid the country’s project implementation.