Namibia is finalizing a policy document that will assist in the development and transformation of the country’s informal sector to be able to contribute to the mainstream economy, the Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade has said.
Trade minister Lucia Iipumbu said on Thursday that her Ministry was putting final touches on an Informal Economy, StartUps and Entrepreneurship National Policy to cater for entrepreneurs, start-ups and general entrepreneurship.
“This policy is also included in the Harambee Prosperity Plan II as a key outcome of the Governance pillar and is to be accompanied by an attendant Act of Parliament later on, which provides ample space for ensuring the mainstreaming of incentives and business infrastructure for our MSMEs both formal and informal,” she said during the buy local grow Namibia informal sector engagements.
She added that the planned regulations, which will be subject to consultations, are aimed at complimenting current efforts by various organisations to accelerate growth of the informal sector and entrepreneurship in the country.
“The Policy and attendant Act are meant to ensure an enabling and supportive framework for key recent institutional interventions by the Ministry pertaining StartUp Namibia and Digital Centre, EMPRETEC Namibia as well as a SDG Impact Facility. The draft policy is to be subjected to public and stakeholder consultations during this year.
Citing global supply chain disruptions and increased food prices attributed to the on-going Russia/Ukraine conflict, Ipumbu called for local enhancement of food production to mitigate the current global shocks.
“This is critical especially given the commodities supply constraints due to the global phenomenon such the Russian – Ukraine war and the COVID – 19 pandemic, which has led to escalation of global prices of goods and services. We therefore need to embrace and consume what we produce locally in order to improve our productive capacity through the support to our local suppliers including those of the informal sector,” she said.
According to a 2018 Ministry of Labour case study report, the informal economy employs an estimated 40% of the country’s national employment creation. The report also noted that 70% of the informal workforce consists of women, while 31% are men.
Namibia’s informal economy is estimated to be 24.7% which represents approximately US$8 billion at GDP PPP levels according to World Economics.
