Our Raison d’être

Goshen’s Raison d’être is the commitment to address the fundamental question at the heart of national development, namely: Why is the socio-economic system we have adopted at independence so massively able to produce wealth and opportunities for a small group of Namibians on the one hand, yet, the very same system is glaringly unable to use that wealth to banish poverty and misery for a greater majority of Namibia’s on the other hand? This critical inquiry is the driving force behind Goshen’s existence.

In seeking to answer this question, Goshen finds inspiration in the World Systems Theory. When juxtaposing this Theory at most of our towns and the City, a picture emerges – in the case of the City especially – of 1 CITY-3 SOCIETIES with the remnants of settler colonialism still persist and thereby rendering the verdict that the structure of the society has not changed in fundamental ways. A new community development model is needed. New alliances are needed!

Goshen employs a new Community Development Model, namely; The Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Model and aligns with the Church to introduce new institutions, systems and processes to build youth-friendly communities.

Goshen is an offspring of the African Church. As such, it works to establish a globally-literate Ecumenical Community that will parachute the voice of the church straight into conversations about national development. By using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as our template; People Goals (1-6) as Social Justice and; Ecological Goals (13-15) as Environmental Sustainability, and applying insights from People Goals and Ecological Goals to support the Industry Goals (7-12) to operate within

the environmental limits of the earth system through effective institutions, systems and Processes, Institutional Goal (16) and forging meaningful partnerships across a wide spectrum of interests, Partnership Goal (17).

When other global, continental, regional and national development agendas such as; the Commonwealth Strategic Plan 2025-2030, the African Union Agenda 2063, SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan 2020-2030 and, Namibia’s own National Development Plan 6 are added to the global development agenda, the voice of the Church – as the undisputed leader of our communities – becomes ever-more powerful and therefore worth elevation to the status as a strategic ally of the Namibian Government and the Private Sector in order birth that which eventually could constitute the Public-Private-Ecumenical Partnership (PPEP).