Professorial Dissertation from the year 2022 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Africa, grade: A, University of Namibia , course: Masters in Finance, language: English, abstract: The main objective of the discourse was to investigate board of director’s effectiveness in commercial public enterprises in Namibia. Various corporate scandal and collapse in many countries has been attributed to board of directors’ ineffectiveness. The study used qualitative method as a research strategy. The research used primary data collected through a qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive approach, by conducting a series of detailed semi-structured interviews with participants from two purposive selected commercial public enterprises made up of board of directors, managing director and company secretaries. The data was analysed using thematic context analysis. The voice records were transcribed from the interview scripts to the diverse codes. The transcription of the intuitive editor enhanced quick changes in formatted format. Coding was data driven. Namely, the researcher commenced out without codes and crafted them through the reading of the discourse. The study focused on skills, diversity, experience, corporate governance, compliance requirements and accountability to shareholder and stakeholder. This was complemented by a comprehensive review of relevant literature. The key findings indicates that board of directors’ effectiveness and factors that influence board of directors’ effectives exist within the board of selected commercial public enterprise. Participants point out the following factors that contribute to board being effective: Board of director’s cohesion and sufficient time allocated to board issues. Diverse technical skills, good relation, support and cooperation from shareholder plus sufficient funding good governance and Operational effectiveness of management. It is recommended that Board of directors to limit serving in many boards and allocated sufficient time to board packs to be able to lead public enterprises effectively and efficiently. The survey recommends the digitisation strategy and algorithmic business thinking by directors of the two enterprises. Innovative thinking to promote sustainability such as the use of solar power and deployment of nuclear energy.

This paper aims to shed some new light on the conditions needed to ensure the effectiveness of Boards of Directors of state owned enterprises with a focus on infrastructure sectors. In the case of developing countries, empirical studies have found evidence of positive links between the composition of the Board of Directors and financial performance. Yet the lack of solid theoretical foundations, and in some cases poor data availability, makes the conclusions of most studies weak. Several policy recommendations emerge from the review of the economic literature and evidence from case studies. First, the introduction of a sufficient number of independent directors emerges as an important corporate governance milestone. Empowering them to exercise effective monitoring of management, however, may prove to be a formidable challenge for of state owned enterprises. More attention to board procedures, particularly related to the Board selection and evaluation process, is essential, to produce the necessary insulation of Boards from government interference. Ensuring sufficient continuity of services to directors is particularly crucial to improve corporate governance. In addition, other factors that may reduce directors' ability to monitor corporate activities, such as the age profile and the number of Boards on which they sit, need to be handled more carefully.

This Toolkit provides an overall framework with practical tools and information to help policymakers design and implement corporate governance reforms for state-owned enterprises. It concludes with guidance on managing the reform process, in particular how to prioritize and sequence reforms, build capacity, and engage with stakeholders.

This booklet contains the Overview as well as a list of contents from the forthcoming book Africa's Infrastructure: A time for Transformation.

National Oil Companies (NOCs) directly or indirectly control the majority of oil and gas reserves. As such, they are of great consequence to their country's economy, to importing countries' energy security, and to the stability of oil and gas markets. The paper analyzes the available evidence on the objectives, governance and performance of 20 NOCs from both net importing and net exporting countries, and draws conclusions about the design of policies and measures that are more likely to lead to social value creation. NOCs differ from private companies on a number of very important variables, including the level of competition in the market in which they operate, their business profile along the sector value chain, and their degree of commercial orientation and internationalization. Most share some core characteristics: they are usually tied to the 'national purpose' and serve political and economic goals other than maximizing the firm's profits. This paper introduces a conceptual model to analyze value creation by NOCs that takes into consideration their complex objective function. Our analysis aims to answer the following questions: Are certain corporate governance arrangements more suited than others to promote value creation? Is good geology a pre-condition for NOC value creation? Are there benefits from exposing the NOC to competition from private oil companies? Does the development of forward and backward linkages hamper NOC value creation?

Social justice is a matter of life and death. It affects the way people live, their consequent chance of illness, and their risk of premature death. We watch in wonder as life expectancy and good health continue to increase in parts of the world and in alarm as they fail to improve in others.