Upper-middle class: A luxury few Namibians can afford

Smallest upper-middle class
* Kenya 4%
* Chad 7%
* Togo 8%
* Zambia 9%
* Namibia, Tanzania 11%
Biggest floating class

* Namibia 81%
* Tanzania 76%
* Lesotho 70%
* Morocco, Mali 68%
* Senegal 67%
Biggest upper-middle class

* Botswana 42%
* Benin 28%
* Central African Republic 26%
* Malawi 23%
* Burundi 19%

ONLY 11 per cent of the about 48 per cent of Namibians who aren’t poverty-stricken, live on between US$10 and US$20 (N$80 and N$160) per day, putting them in the upper-middle class of the population.Eight per cent form the lower-middle class, spending between US$4 and US$10 daily.The rest, according to a report by the African Development Bank (AfDB) have to make do with between US$2 and US$4 every day. This 81 per cent is called the ‘floating class’, who ‘remain largely vulnerable to slipping back into poverty in the event of some exogenous shocks’, the AfDB says.Namibia has the biggest floating class of all 33 African countries reviewed in the report, called ‘The Middle of the Pyramid: Dynamics of the Middle Class in Africa’. Countries included in the study range from Egypt, Djibouti and Benin to Tanzania, Ethiopia and Zambia.According to the AfDB, nearly 52 per cent of Namibians are poor, living on US$2 and less a day.The report says Africa’s middle class has tripled over the last 30 years, with fully one in three now considered above the poverty line but not among the wealthy, according to the African Development Bank.In 2010, 34,3 per cent of the African population, or 313 million people, were classified as middle class, compared with 26,2 per cent or 111 million people in 1980.’Solid economic growth in Africa over the past two decades has contributed to reducing poverty in Africa and increasing the size of the middle class,’ the report said, underlining that the emergent class helped increase consumption and develop the private sector.The class is defined as those who spend between two and US$20 a day, a range the bank says is appropriate given the cost of living in the world’s poorest continent.But those on the low end, living on between two and four dollars a day, are vulnerable and could fall back into poverty at the slightest crisis, the AfDB warns.The more stable middle class – spending between four and US$20 a day – counts some 120 million people and ‘is more or less the size of the middle class in India or China’.Nevertheless, widespread inequalities persist, with some 100 000 Africans holding some 60 per cent of the continent’s gross domestic product in 2008, according to the report.Some 61 per cent of the continent’s population lives below the poverty line of two dollars a day.CRUCIALThe middle class is ‘crucial for the economic and political development of Africa’, the AfDB says, noting that it provides a market for private businesses, as its counterparts in the United States and Europe have done.Overall consumption levels on the continent are currently around a third of those in Europe, and have held up during the recession.Sales of refrigerators, television sets, mobile telephones and cars have increased markedly in almost all African countries over the past few years, the AfDB says.’Possession of cars and motorcycles in Ghana, for example, has increased by 81 per cent since 2006,’ the report said.Africans also have better access to electricity and high-speed Internet, have fewer children and spend more money on educating their offspring than poorer people do.INTERNET BOOM’The number of Internet users, which can be used as a proxy for middle-class lifestyles, has increased from about 4,5 million people in 2000 to 80,6 million people in 2008,’ the report says.On the political level, the middle class is better informed and more concerned about human rights and the quality of public services, and likely to demand more accountability from their governments.Economic growth, reduced inequalities, the development of the private sector, the creation of stable salaried jobs and higher education have all helped the emergence of the middle class.Generally better educated, members of the middle class are often salaried workers or own small businesses, and typically live in the towns or in coastal areas in brick housing with modern appliances.This rising middle class can be a key factor in helping African countries base growth more on domestic demand and less on exports, according to the report. – Additional reporting by Nampa-AFP