**3. Defining globalisation in the Namibian context**

Globalisation is the growing interdependence of the world's economies, particularly the huge increase in capital movements and the rapid growth of world trade [2]. The adoption of trade policies and removal of trade barriers, leading to decrease in informational and communication costs due to information technology revolution, fosters the interdependence between nations and increasing internationalisation of trade and production. It is characterised by an intensification of cross-border trade and increased investment flows, and promoted by rapid liberalisation and advances in information technologies [3].

While globalisation was viewed in 1900s as a strategy by imperialists to advance their agendas, today globalisation is viewed as interdependence of the world's economies. Globalisation has various dimensions and are commonly grouped under five categories, namely: economic, political, social, technological, and cultural. Among the dimensions and aspects of globalisation, the focus of recent discussions besides wars and climate change has been centred on whether globalisation really help poor people of the world. Most scholars concluded that globalisation indeed benefit the poor, but only if appropriate complementary policies and institutions are in place [4], while others challenge the presumption of a positive relationship between globalisation and welfare of the poor [2].

Namibia was classified as an upper-middle income country in 2009, and after South Africa is the most unequal country in the world with a Gini coefficient at 0.572 (World Bank, 2017). The Namibian economic growth has averaged 4.5% over the past 10 years, but with a high unemployment rate of 34% (broad) and of 29.6% (strict), and poverty incidence of 27% (Namibia Statistics Agency, 2016).

The government's social safety net programme introduced at independence in 1990 helped to reduce absolute and severe poverty with over 32 percentage points. Despite this progress about 6.1% of the Namibian population still could not afford to buy the minimum calories per day (approximately 2000–2500 calories per day), and about 11% of the population were still below the lower bound poverty line and 17% below the upper bound poverty line. Experts have suggested improvement of education system, attraction of investments that produces sustainable jobs, progressive tax system, and a comprehensive welfare system to address inequality and help scale-down high poverty rates.

To that end, Namibia has enacted policies to redress the income inequality—the New Equitable Economic Empowerment Framework, Black Economic Empowerment policy, and Affirmative Action policy, but only a few people have been benefited. Namibia has also enacted an industrial policy—a driving force to make Namibia a developed and industrialised nation by 2030. The industrialisation policy is geared towards openness, to ensure market access. Clearly, Namibia needs new pro-poor interventions to aggressively address wealth redistribution.

Nevertheless, the economic returns from open trade are unquestionable, but the perceptions about uneven distribution of returns between nations remain [5]. For some, globalisation is perceived as a vulnerability, while for others as an economic emancipation. Globalisation opened doors for multinational companies to practice what is termed "offshoring". Offshoring is when a company shifts the location of part of service or production to a location abroad. Many multinationals have adopted this strategy in order to avoid paying high labour and production costs. At the time, Namibia was struggling with the high unemployment rate of 20.2% [1], hence the Ramatex investment was highly commended because it was believed to positively impact Namibia's macroeconomic performance as the investment was said to create over 10,000 jobs, and raking in millions of dollars in taxes. Namibians from all across the country flocked to the capital city: Windhoek with the aim of improving not only their personal lives, but also those of their extended families. But, all these dreams, hopes and aspirations were short lived as the Malaysian company only operated for a little over 8 years. This had a very big impact on Namibia, as the economy had to find new ways to survive. A substantial number of citizens lost their jobs, and the psychological impacts of recovery were very detrimental on the families. The holes left behind by Ramatex are still haunting Namibians today, thus the fear among the people that despite the fact that globalisation is intended to open trade barriers for the betterment of economies, it brings with it social challenges such as unemployment and social collapse. Many a times, activists and anti-globalists have slammed transnational companies' disregard for the welfare of the people. Business ethics and moral principles supposed to be at the centre of every business' operation. But as was the case with Ramatex in Namibia, big corporations only seem to be interested in the profits. There does not seem to be a regard as to how their operations affect the lives of the people or communities in which they operate. Back then, the Namibian laws were somewhat lenient, as there was no pressure on corporations to fulfil their corporate social responsibility. Fortunately, the unions exerted pressure on Ramatex through orchestrated protests and strikes, causing reduced product demand in the US and eventual Ramatex shutdown.
