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MIT To Train 1400 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises


By:Laban Rasalus

The Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade will be providing training to about 1400 micro, small and medium enterprises.

Minister Lucia Iipumbu said this year’s training starts in April and the Ministry will be working closely with Empretec Namibia.

Enhancing Entrepreneurship Development Programme in Namibia is an initiative of the Namibia government working in partnership with UNDP Namibia, with the aim of unlocking the growth potential of micro, small and medium enterprises in Namibia through a competency-based behavioral entrepreneurship training and the provision of a bouquet of business advisory services.

The entire scope of the programme is hinged on four (4) key pillars namely, institutional capacity development, entrepreneurship development, establishment of start-ups and enterprises’ growth, and the development of a National Entrepreneurship Strategy and Stakeholder Dialogue, for MSME Development.

While responding to questions raised by Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) member of parliament Jennifer van den Heever, Minister Iipumbu said the aim is to train MSMEs and larger enterprises into appropriate entrepreneurial behaviour to ensure that they can create sustainable businesses going forward.

She said the training will be delivered by 25 trainers who were recently trained, consisting of half the Ministry’s regional staff and the rest from the private sector.

“The Ministry, through Empretec Namibia, does work with many partners to offer training on basic entrepreneurship, financial literacy and business modelling. During 2022 such training was conducted in eight regions and thereby benefiting 228 MSMEs,” she said.

Over 90 entrepreneurs were trained, with about 40 of them falling in the category of being vulnerable.

Iipumbu said the Ministry has trained over 200 beneficiaries in gemstones for MSMEs since 2010, of which 60 of them found employment in the diamond polishing and cutting sector.

“We trained another 25 beneficiaries in 2021 of which 16 are now placed in employment and hope to putfive of them in the Training of Trainers [programme] in 2023,” Iipumbu said.

Responding to the question of access to credit, she said this problem is also marked by durability, adding that it is not only the access to credit but the availability of appropriate credit as well.

According to Iipumbu, there are various programmes implemented around the country to support MSMEs where all enterprises across the country can apply through these platforms and mainly through regional offices.

“Going forward it is our ultimate pleasure to announce that the National Treasury has availed funding for the 2023/24 period to continue with the Equipment Aid Scheme, Empretec Namibia, SDG Impact Facility and the Industrial Upgrading and Modernization Programme,” she said.

The SDG Impact Facility is used to provide competitive catalytic funding in form of blended finance -grants and concessional debt finance – to micro-small and mediumeEnterprises (MSMEs) with commercially viable businesses in the targeted economic sectors. It is intended to incentivise financial institutions to provide affordable long-term loans so that funding becomes more easily available to enterprises.

Laban Rasalus

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