Trade ministry to train unemployed youth

The Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade (MIT) through its EMPRETEC Office will undertake regional training to capacitate unemployed youth with basic entrepreneurial development skills. The RAISSO Book Society, an association of unemployed youth mainly volunteers requested the Ministry to conduct training for its active members involved in different socio-economic activities in the regions. MIT will facilitate this very important training to all 14 regions focusing specifically with the development of business plan and other necessary documentations essential to enable the youth to access funding from financial institution through entrepreneurial skills development training programme offered by EMPRETEC Namibia in collaboration with United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The Government of the Republic of Namibia, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other development partners identified the need to support entrepreneurs in the country with the establishment of EMPRETEC Namibia for the development of Entrepreneurship skills for enterprise expansion. The overall objective for EMPRETEC Namibia project is to support entrepreneurship and enterprise development in the country using best practice of the EMPRETEC model.

Lack of entrepreneurial competencies among youth necessitated the Ministry to embark upon this daunting task to dispatch a team to engage in skills transfer to empower redundant youth country wide. The training is expected to yield desired result embedded in the canvasing model focusing in behaviour and mind-set change to unlock business opportunities in respective communities. This coaching exercise is envisaged to chiefly enhance entrepreneurial skills and livelihood of participants.