African Media Barometer Namibia 2026: When the law exists but doesn't work
2026-06-02
Somewhere in a Namibian newsroom right now, a journalist is making a calculation. Not about whether a story is true, or whether it serves the public interest. The calculation is simpler and more corrosive: whether pursuing this particular story is worth the financial risk.
That quiet, private moment, repeated daily across newsrooms, is one of the most telling findings in the African Media Barometer Namibia 2026.
Released this week by the NMT Media Foundation in partnership with the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and DW Akademie, the AMB records an overall score of 2.7 out of 5.0, down from 3.1 in 2022. The decline does not signal collapse. It signals something more structural: a country that has built a sound legal framework for media freedom, but whose institutions have not kept pace with its laws.
Strong Rights. Weak Delivery.
Namibia’s achievements are real. Freedom of expression is constitutionally protected and enforceable. The internet remains open and unshuttered, a distinction the country shares with very few African states. Citizens speak with confidence. Courts have protected press freedom when called upon. These are not small things.
But the 2026 AMB finds that structural pressures are accumulating and reinforcing one another. The Access to Information Act, adopted in 2022, remains inoperative more than three years later. The office of the Information Commissioner, the structure that would give the law its reach, has not been established and no Commissioner has been appointed. A data protection framework has not been enacted. Criminal defamation remains on the statute books, casting a chill over investigative reporting. The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) operates without adequate editorial independence protections, financially dependent on annual state allocations. All four sectors assessed by the AMB scored between 2.7 and 2.8 out of 5.0, a consistency that confirms the challenges are systemic, not isolated.
The Human Cost
Behind the scores are people. Journalists working in newsrooms of shrinking means, trying to hold power to account with less capacity than the job demands. Investigative reporters working without the statutory source protection that their counterparts in stronger legal environments take for granted. Community and indigenous-language media outlets fighting for survival in a shrinking advertising market. Citizens who have a legal right to government information they cannot access because the law guaranteeing it has never been switched on.
Perhaps the most striking finding is this: it is citizens, not journalists, who increasingly exercise freedom of expression with greater confidence. That inversion - ordinary people speaking more freely while the professional press pulls back - is a signal that journalism in Namibia is facing a sustainability and confidence crisis that formal rights alone cannot resolve. When journalists self-censor out of economic necessity, accountability suffers. Social media commentary, however energetic, does not replace resourced, legally protected investigative reporting.
What Needs to Change
The AMB makes seven concrete recommendations. Appoint the Information Commissioner and operationalise the Access to Information Act. Repeal criminal defamation. Enact data protection legislation. Improve transparency in state advertising. Protect the NBC’s editorial independence. Invest in investigative journalism. Develop ethical guidelines for journalism and artificial intelligence.
None of these require new legislation from scratch. Most require the government to honour commitments it has already made, and to build the institutional infrastructure that turns rights into reality. The message of the 2026 AMB is clear: Namibia has done the legislative work. What remains is the political will to make it work.
The African Media Barometer Namibia 2026 was convened by the NMT Media Foundation in partnership with MISA and DW Akademie. The AMB is a perception index; findings reflect the views of the assessment panel and do not necessarily represent the positions of the convening organisations. Download the full report. A two-page infographic summary is also available for download.