Abstract

The Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) was established in terms of the Statistics Act, (No.9 of 2011), with the mandate among others to be the central repository for official statistics and to coordinate the National Statistical System. This is to ensures that the produced statistics are harmonized and of high quality for planning, decision-making, and monitoring of national and global development agendas.
It is against this background that the “Leave No One Behind” (LNOB) standard was developed to prescribes the core set of variables which are mandatory to all data producers in the NSS, in order to measure the “leave no one behind” concept. These key variables (age; sex; citizenship; disability; ethnicity; education; geographical location; marital status; orphan-hood) shall form the basis of all data collection tools for surveys, censuses and administrative data in Namibia, where possible. The LNOB concept underpins the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which aims to understand who are left behind and their reasons, in order to end extreme poverty, inequality and to fast-track progress for the people who are left behind. In addition, the LNOB echoes the African Agenda 2063, “the Africa we want”, our national agendas such as the 5th National development plans (NDP5) as well as Vision 2030, that aims to achieve prosperity for all Namibians.
In order to achieve goals as set out in these agendas and for the ease of monitoring and tracking progress made thereof, data should be disaggregated to an extent that populations that are left behind are easily identifiable for further intervention. The purpose of this standard is therefore to present a core set of variables required to measure the “leave no one behind” concept in Namibia.