Assessing the Understanding of Stakeholders about the Stakeholder Theory toward the Local Economic Development initiatives for Helao Nafidi Town Council in Ohangwena Region, Namibia

The objective of this study was to assess the stakeholders’ understanding of the stakeholder theory (ST) toward the Local Economic Development (LED) initiatives in Helao Nafidi Town Council (HNTC) of Ohangwena region (OhR), Namibia. The understanding of stakeholders on ST signifies informative and integrated information aimed at attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which combine environmental, economic, social, institutional, and political aspects by identifying their interlinkages in realizing the LED in local governments. This study assesses stakeholders' understanding of ST towards LED initiatives in HNTC. Thus, the study used a stakeholders’ theory (ST), which provides a framework for exploring the processes of understanding stakeholders in a management sense, and the questionnaires were designed to meet the objectives of this study. The data was collected through the quantitative research method (QRM) and analyzed using Microsoft Excel (MSE), which provided relevant analysis for the data. The assessment of stakeholders’ understanding of ST conducted in this study indicates that the ST process is influenced by both internal and external stakeholders (90%) and the relevant principles regarding intervention strategies (83%) for the LED initiative.