Hertha Ekandjo
Namibia Promotion Investment and Development Board (NIPDB) chief executive officer Nangula Uaandja said that Namibian entrepreneurs have markets to showcase their products, but that business success will be possible if Namibia gets its products right.
Uaandja said this at the launch of the first-ever Know2Grow NextGen Entrepreneur showcase held in Tsumeb last week.
“There is a market. I think that is good news. If we can get our products right, there is a market. There are markets that we can access through various agreements that the ministry of industrialisation and trade has entered on behalf of Namibia, so there is a market,” she pointed out.
The CEO said that they are creating incubations for industries such as the cosmetic and agriculture industries to close the gap between the market and entrepreneurs’ ideas.
Last year, NIPDB announced that it was in the process of establishing its own retail store that would exclusively stock Namibian products created by small and medium enterprises to provide shelf life to local goods that might otherwise struggle to attain it.
Uaandja says that many young people have the energy, passion, commitment and will to work with entrepreneurs and stakeholders in the ecosystem to help find the answer to getting the right product onto the Namibian market.
“Recently we launched our internal culture and that culture shows that our brand is for Namibia. We are going to be brave for Namibia, when we get overwhelmed we would stand up and be brave,” she said.
According to her, Namibia has several challenges such as youth unemployment, with overall unemployment.
According to the latest labour force survey of 2018 from the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), the country’s unemployment rate stands at 33.4% and youth unemployment 49%.
Uaandja added that there have been many activities over the years aimed at supporting MSMEs and the youth, but classroom training is not helping.
The K2G NextGen entrepreneurs showcase is an annual market access and capacity-building trade fair that is designed to accelerate the development of innovative youth-led businesses in Namibia.
More than 120 MSMEs from various industries such as food processing, cosmetics and manufacturing among others showcased their innovative products and services during the three-day event.
The event is being celebrated under the theme “Scaling through Innovation, Value Addition, and Co-operatives”.
Mathew Hangula, mayor of Tsumeb said that the K2G Next Gen showcase brought about great pride to his former copper-rich town.
“I trust that this showcase will unveil countless opportunities for key private and government stakeholders to engage with young entrepreneurs and make it easy to boost their chance in succeeding in their businesses,” Hangula said.
He mentioned that there was a lineup of 30 business support organisations to engage with 140 selected SMEs of which 60 were at the showcase while 80 have joined on visual platforms.
The showcase had a series of panel discussions on international business support organisations, business-to-business engagement, and networking platforms among entrepreneurs.
Speaking on behalf of the investment and trade ministry’s executive director, economist Nafimane Shipanga said that the showcase will promote multi-stakeholder collaborations.
“The ministry is aware of the difficulties that entrepreneurs face, particularly in assessing financial support to expand and grow their businesses. Traditional financial institutions are mostly reluctant to support MSMEs because of the perceived risk associated with upcoming entrepreneurs,” Shipanga said.
He noted that the 2015/2016 global recession caused by the reduction in commodity prices, resulted in serious physical consolidations followed by a catastrophic impact of Covid-19, which placed a burden on the government’s effort to support young entrepreneurs in the country.
