Every few months, a familiar ritual plays out in Namibia. A hall is booked, banners go up in national colours and speeches praise small businesses as the backbone of the economy.
Certificates are handed out, photographs are taken, and everyone goes home feeling something has moved.
The honest question is: what happens to that entrepreneur six months later? Did the certificate translate into a contract or working capital? For most, the answer is no. The banners come down, and the small business owner returns to the grind of chasing tax clearances, deciphering complex tender documents, and waiting months for government payments.
Namibia has become very good at organising entrepreneurship, but whether we are building entrepreneurs is a different question entirely.
Local procurement policies exist, yet the practice often falls short. A handful of contracts get redistributed among established players, while smaller, capable businesses are locked out by requirements like audited financial statements and heavy collateral.
Instead of creating a productive supply chain, we risk reshuffling the same small pool of opportunities among familiar names.
This comes at a crucial moment. Billions of dollars are discussed around green hydrogen, oil, gas and regional logistics. Yet we must ask how much of this activity will actually belong to Namibians. Will local companies handle the catering, transport, maintenance and engineering, or will foreign contractors arrive with pre-assembled supply chains?
A mine or energy plant alone does not create a middle class – the thousands of small enterprises servicing it do.
Public institutions must also confront system performance over mere plans. Completing a strategy document is often celebrated as the achievement itself, rather than the start.
Tools like artificial intelligence (AI) could help institutions see where applications sit unprocessed or where simple requests require six unnecessary signatures.
More broadly, AI represents a massive levelling tool for small entrepreneurs. A caterer at Katutura or a transport operator at Rundu now has access to market research, accounting and legal guidance without paying heavy consultant fees.
The critical question is whether our training programmes and vocational curricula are equipping young Namibians to use AI as a productive tool, or if we are simply warning them about disappearing jobs.
Our core challenge is not a lack of policies or funding, but a missing mindset. We must treat entrepreneurship as a national production system – like mining or agriculture – with targeted, sector-specific support in construction, information and communication technology, tourism and logistics.
Success should not be measured by how many businesses are registered, but by how many survive past five years, employ people and grow.
Furthermore, citizens now track progress in real time. Tender disputes and delayed payments spread across social media instantly, and Namibians actively compare local progress to peer nations. Managing the economic story through press releases is no longer enough.
Namibia holds remarkable advantages: stability, natural wealth and strategic geography. But advantages are not outcomes. It is time to stop measuring progress by the number of expos held, and start measuring it by how many Namibian businesses remain standing and hiring long after the cameras leave.
– Herman Nghidipaa is a cyber security professional and a founder of Manoria Investment CC.
