When Namibia achieved Independence in 1990, the new majority government inherited a
country marred by widespread poverty and deep inequality after more than a century of
colonial rule and Apartheid. According to one conservative estimate at the time, at least
two thirds of the population were classified as absolutely poor, including three quarters of
the black population (World Bank 1992). The Population Census in 1991 (CBS 1993)
and a Demographic Health Survey in 1992 (MOHSS 1993) provided the first real
quantitative assessments of the state of social well-being among the Namibian people as a
whole at the time of Independence and offered evidence to the deep inequalities in the
provision and access to social services—especially between urban areas and the
predominantly rural northern regions where the majority of the population lived.