NAMIBIA can learn from its Nordic counterpart Finland in areas of value addition, vocational training and renewable energy to arrest its high poverty and unemployment levels, says Popular Democratic Movement leader McHenry Venaani.
The president of the official opposition made these observations when the Finnish ambassador to Namibia, Pirkko-Liisa Kyöstilä, paid him a courtesy visit on Monday.
During the short conversation before the two went into a closed-door meeting, Venaani stressed the importance of value- addition in employment-creation.
Value-addition to commodities is Africa’s biggest challenge, he added.
“Our problem in Africa is that we are importing labour from China, while we are supposed to give those jobs to our people. And I think Finland can help us in the areas of vocational training so that we create people with skills,” said Venaani.
As such, Africa must identify strategic partners who seek to address value-addition as a key driver in employment-creation.
“An example is the cocoa trade, where countries such as Côte d’Ivoire are the biggest planters of cocoa, but only get 5% from cocoa trade,” Venaani lamented.
He continued: “Switzerland, who are producing the final product from cocoa (chocolate), are making the money. From cocoa alone, Africa could create over 100 000 jobs.”
Equally, he noted how Namibia could learn from the Nordic countries, particularly Finland, in the field of renewable energy.
“We have the sun in abundance, more than Finland. We have wind, but we are doing nothing to make sure that we deliver these services,” he stated.
On her part, Kyöstilä indicated that the Namibia-Finland relationship spans over 15 decades.
However, Namibia’s ranking as an upper-middle-income country is to its detriment in terms of benefiting from Finland’s development programmes.
“We don’t have the bilateral development programme anymore. We are supporting your civil society organisations, and we have a lot of good cooperation in that field,” the ambassador said.
Despite this ranking, economic relations and diplomacy are now the way forward between the two countries.
This is in a bid to improve opportunities for Finnish and Namibian businesses in either country.
“That is our priority,” she said.
To this effect, a Finnish business delegation led by its minister of economic affairs, Mika Lintilä, will visit Namibia towards the end of October. It will be composed of 13 Finnish companies and nine representatives of higher learning institutions in the field of education and vocational education.
– Nampa
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