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A part of the colonial legacy of Namibia is the suffering caused by the system of apartheid, racial discrimination, war, poverty and other injustices to the Namibian people. Policies of apartheid rule in particular served to accentuate racial and ethnic divisions within the society to the extent that different communities continued to remain segregated geographically, economically and socially.

Namibia has a population of 1.6 million and, over the last few decades, the country’s population has been growing at a rate of three percent. Further, because of age distribution patterns, the number of youth is growing faster than any other age group. In the absence of viable alternatives in rural areas, many of these young people are migrating to towns and cities, swelling the ranks of urban unemployed. Repatriation of exiles and demobilisation of combatants from both sides of the conflict further aggravated the employment shortfall and increased the possibility of social tension.

Indeed, unemployment is a major problem in Namibia. Only 19.6% of the economically active population are employed and national unemployment rate is 31.4%. Such levels of unemployment breed other problems, such as, increase in crime rate and alcoholism. Alternative sources of income are generated by unemployed Namibians from the sale of home-brewed beer and spirits. Still others live a humiliating life by searching for scraps of food in garbage dumps in and near the towns. This is not an unusual scene, but is a matter of grave concern for the government.

We have a high percentage of unemployed youth as most of them have very little or no education. Most of these young people have severed their family links and moved away from their home environments in search of work, which they are unable to obtain because of lack of skills.

Young people are an asset of any nation. They are full of energy and have a dream and vision for the future. They are pragmatic and uninhibited in their approach. This is a resource which, when properly nurtured can be rewarding, but when ignored and neglected, can explode into catastrophe and disaster.

Colonial rule did not prepare young Namibians for constructive contribution to nation building. The Bantu Education System prepared young Namibians for subservient roles only. As a consequence of the various ills of apartheid, contemporary young Namibians find themselves unable to cope with the technically advanced labour market. Hence, unemployment is the result. Crime rate has gone up as a natural consequence of high unemployment and youth are being stigmatised as perpetrators of crimes in our towns and cities.

Keeping in mind these realities, a Ministry of Youth and Sport was created in 1991 by hiving off the responsibilities of sport from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. Creation of this ministry was driven by the realisation that the youth, who constitute more than half of the population, and their problems, such as, illiteracy, inability to continue in school, lack of appropriate skills, unemployment, alcohol abuse, etc., need focused attention. In addition to addressing the social issues affecting young people, this ministry is responsible for the promotion of sport in schools and at community level; for, sport is an important ingredient of initiatives for building individuals’ self-worth, and promoting community spirit.

Thus, the objective of the ministry is to oversee all government policies and operations in regard to youth and sport; to ensure that the objectives are achieved and policies are properly implemented; to review policy options and suggest and/or approve and make public government’s policies and guidelines in these areas.

1. Development of the youth to its fullest potential with special reference to unemployed youth, illiterate youth, school dropouts between the ages of 15 and 30, and rural youth.

The ministry carries out its responsibilities through two directorates, viz., the Directorate of Sport Promotion and Development, and the Directorate of Youth Development.

All areas of work in which Directorate Youth Development is presently involved are seen as essential to address the needs, problems and expectations of the target group of this ministry. When Namibia became independent, there was no institution that looked after the well-being and interest of the youth despite the fact that it is the youth who are most impacted by socio-economic issues, such as, education, skills, sports, health, infrastructure, employment, etc. Therefore, this directorate is responsible for addressing the youth’s concerns, and active promotion of their role in national social and economic development. The Directorate also emphasises plight of the unemployed youth and school dropouts and aims at enhancing their access to economic and social services.

Youth in Namibia is defined as that group of young people, both male and female, aged between 15 and 30. However, for practical reasons, many of the activities will often need to embrace all those below the age of 30. The definition is therefore, not rigidly restrictive. What is important is the acknowledgement that it is the youth as a group that is most beset by problems of school drop-out, illiteracy, lack of appropriate skills, unemployment and underemployment, alcohol and substance abuse, HIV/AIDS and other health-related problems as well as problems of urbanisation.

Therefore, the directorate’s mission is to plan, co-ordinate, facilitate and implement programmes for the socio-economic development of the Namibian youth in conformity with national development goals and objectives as set out in the National Youth Policy and the priority areas in youth development as defined by the Commonwealth Youth Programme and the United Nations.

The directorate consists of two divisions: Division Resource Co-ordination, Information and Research, and Division Training and Employment.

The division is responsible for enhancing, identifying, consolidating and providing necessary resources to facilitate national youth initiatives. Its functions therefore include:

4. Enhancing scientific research for the provision of data for strategy planning.

5. Administering an information data bank for disseminating information on youth needs, health and counselling.

8. Facilitating government and non-government participation in international and Commonwealth youth programmes.

10. Planning, co-ordinating and facilitating national and international youth exchange programmes.

Programmes are developed by programme specialists and national co-ordinators at head office level in collaboration with the target group, line ministries and through their involvement in inter-ministerial and inter-sectoral committees. These programmes are then implemented by regional youth officers and staff in collaboration with regional and district youth forums and groups.

The ministry provides broad guidelines for youth development from which action programmes and services for youth are developed. These programmes aim at encouraging active participation and contribution of the Namibian youth to national, social and economic development. To that end, the ministry has formulated a National Youth Policy and strategies that serve as guidelines for youth development.

1. promoting and encouraging active participation and contribution of Namibian youth in national social and economic development,

2. providing a platform for NGOs involved with youth to meet and share experiences, and

3. creating structures through which youth can be represented, e.g., the National Youth Council, regional youth for a, and district fora.

The ministry is also entrusted with the task of promoting and developing sport among the Namibian population and the youth in particular, as well as of combating youth unemployment. In its emphasis on the need for the “youth to grow with the nation” the government has set out to:

4. promote the rights and responsibilities of young people and increase their participation in national development.

Thus, youth development is seen as a process of continuous planning of youth development structures, institutions and programmes that facilitates and creates societal conditions conducive to the advancement and protection of the rights of the youth and their self-actualisation.

To facilitate successful implementation of this programme, the ministry continues to function as a collaborating partner in the juvenile justice reform process. Emphasis of this programme continues to be on five component areas:

1. Life Skills Diversion Programme which aims at diverting juvenile offenders away from the strict and formal criminal justice system to a system of life skills training.

2. Prisons and Detainment Outreach Programme through the provision of life skills training to those youths already in prisons.

Juvenile Justice Advocacy and Awareness is a new programme, developed in mid-1994. It aims to support the juvenile justice reform in Namibia by providing specific juvenile justice programming, training and advocacy. In addition, the programme works closely with other line ministries and NGOs to ensure a co-ordinated approach to reform.

The ministry recognises the important contribution youth can make in affecting change and promoting economic and social development in Namibia. However, too often, young people fail to benefit from this process because of single or multiple conflicts with the law that leads to incarceration and/or labelling as a “criminal.”

The Juvenile Justice Reform process was begun in July 1994 with the creation of the Juvenile Justice Forum, an informal organisation set up to address pertinent juvenile justice issues. The group consists of representatives from various line ministries and NGOs with an interest in juvenile justice reform. The ministry is a founding member of the forum and has been actively involved in juvenile justice advocacy, development and implementation ever since. This programme is an expressed commitment by the ministry to expand its juvenile justice reform programme and service provision to juvenile offenders.

This programme forms part of our Juvenile Justice Programme and contains aspects of the Family Life Empowerment Programme and the National Plan of Action for Children which will be co-ordinated by the newly appointed juvenile justice co-ordinator. Main aim of this programme is to promote public awareness and address issues relating to youth and child rights and to assist with the monitoring of these expressed youth and child rights as embodied Article 15 of the Constitution of Namibia, as well as the United Nations and other international treaties and agreements.

The programme is, however, not simply advocacy through awareness, but rather advocacy through action. It is national in scope and will be implemented throughout the country. The following programme initiatives are already in progress:

This programme puts particular emphasis on issues relating to juvenile justice, primary health care and education. The programme is national in scope and implemented throughout the country by regional youth officers and multipurpose youth resource centre staff personnel of this ministry.

The youth never had the opportunity to actively participate in environmental issues because they did not have the opportunity to participate in any development. There are crucial global issues regarding the environment, e.g., deforestation, conservation, population, etc. where youth can play a very constructive role. Therefore, this programme aims to promote a number of initiatives as follows:

3. establishing and running urban based environmental centres youth conservation corps, and

Rural areas in Namibia contain 70% of the country’s population. Though rural youth face constraints similar to those faced by their urban counterparts, these constraints are exacerbated as a result of availability of fewer resources and more problematic access to potential development interventions. In general, young people face a host of harsh realities: high unemployment; limited potential for income-generating activities for want of capital and expertise required to initiate such activities; high numbers of early school leavers; illiteracy; lack of training or recreational facilities; and health problems which may be associated with HIV/AIDS and uneven access to relevant information concerning health, contraception and sexuality.

Response of many young people to the depressing range of issues affecting their daily reality is to migrate to urban centres, where they hope to obtain employment. An increasing number of young people seeking work as casual labourers each day on the streets of Windhoek bears witness to the trend. Not only does this urban migration place increasing burden on facilities in urban areas, it also deprives the rural areas of the energy and creativity of young people -- further encouraging the cycle to continue. Therefore, this programme aims to:

1. empower rural youth by providing facilities, services and educational opportunities in an informal setting,

2. integrate rural youth into community-based natural resources management programmes,

3. provide rural youth with vocational skills in an informal education setting using experiment-based learning techniques, and

Very high rates of teenage pregnancy raise a number of concerns in relation to the country’s overall population growth and development, the youth’s reproductive health, and their vulnerability to poverty. It is a complex problem requiring understanding of socio-cultural environment, changes that take place in adolescents’ life, adolescent attitudes to sexuality, peer group pressure, economic pressure linked to poverty, social change and urbanisation process, and decay of traditional structures that formerly moulded the transition from childhood to socially-valued reproductive roles, extent of education on sex and contraceptive knowledge and practice, and the youth’s proneness to such problems as unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse. Addressing these problems requires a holistic approach and the involvement of a leading agency to facilitate co-ordination and implementation.

In November 1992, the ministry was given the mandate to develop a programme of youth health and development with out-of-school youth at the first International Conference on School and Youth Health, held in Swakopmund. In January 1994, the Youth Health Programme of the ministry was established with its main focus on out-of-school youth. The programme is also accessible to school-going youth, but outside of the school context. Since that time, the programme has developed a variety of strategies to attempt to meet health needs of young people. The programme’s emphasis is on counselling and education, provision of youth-friendly health related services, preventative programmes, peer education and counselling, and research. Main components of overall health programme are as follows:

Needs Assessment: The first stage of the programme was to assess the specific health needs of young people. Priorities as perceived by young people were identified through focus group discussions with young people throughout the country. Overall, health issues identified were reproductive health, alcohol and drug abuse, and broader social problems issues emanating from these health problems.

Training: One of the major components of the programme has been to train youth officers to incorporate health promotion work as part of their work as youth development workers, drawing on extensive links between health and development. This training has included a number of components as follows:

2. Organising, facilitating and evaluating participatory education with young people.

Information, Education and Communication: There has been a strong focus on the development of information, education and communication strategies driven by young people who have wide range of skills, ideas and creativity which are under-tapped. Thus, health officers facilitate the process but allow young people to take the process further.

Research: The research component of the health programme focuses particularly on those young people who are marginalised in some way. To date, this has included research into the health and development needs of rural youth in the Kavango Region through a process of participatory rapid appraisal; and research into the situation of young sex workers and their clients in Walvis Bay. Through the health programme, research is also being initiated into rights and discrimination in the context of HIV infection in Namibia. It is hoped that the research component of the health programme will be strengthened in the coming years with researching current initiatives in youth health throughout the country, and documenting these in a systematic form with a view to developing an extensive and easily-accessible data base.

Service Provision: After more than two years of work on health education, it became apparent that the involvement of the Youth Health Programme in health promotion could also be extended to provision of health services. Such an approach was thought to be more effective in meeting a clearly identified need for open and friendly service for young people, especially in relation to the more sensitive aspects of young people’s health, such as, their reproductive health. Further, it was felt that existing services did not have the human resources or time to really offer young people all the information, education, counselling and support they required, and that these services were often not sensitive to the needs of young people. In order to take this initiative further, a pilot programme is to be established in Windhoek.

There is generally a lack of adequate structures to identify needs and to provide information and services to youth in order for them to become active players in the future development of the country. The ministry recognised this gap and decided to play a catalytic role in identifying the needs of the youth, co-ordinating creative responses to the needs, and mobilising resources to address these needs. The ministry also recognises that NGOs and community-based organisations can play an important role in meeting there challenges. Further, many of the ministries already perform functions that can contribute to the alleviation of the identified problems. Accordingly the concept of “Workers with Youth Forum and Network” was developed.

The aim of the programme is to establish a central resources unit, namely, the National Information Data Bank and Information, Education and Communication Unit (IEC) that seeks to assist youth, youth organisations, and researchers at national and regional levels in accessing resources, training material and information on youth-related issues, and in providing opportunity to network with others in related fields.

Overall, therefore, this programme aims to enhance information collection and dissemination on youth issues by taking a number of initiatives as follows:

7. establishing a youth and rural youth-specific reference library and study facilities,

The aim of this programme is to provide young Namibians opportunity to meet with youth at national, regional and international levels and through this contact share knowledge and experiences by participating in regional, national and international youth exchange programmes, and regional, national and international volunteer work camps. In addition, the ministry provides youth hostel facilities of international standard.

This scheme will be a national study service scheme for all categories of Namibian youth. It will aim at school leavers and youth out of school to engage in study service within the public sector where they would be involved in the social development of the country. This scheme is being put in place in the light of the fact that the youth in Namibia were disadvantaged in the area of employment, skills training and education and need an opportunity to play a constructive role.

The aim is to provide well-equipped youth resource centres with well-qualified and motivated staff to address the multiple problems and expectations of youth in the regions. These centres will seek to bring together various communities and government agencies involved in youth work and thereby strengthen programmes and activities as well as maximise the utilisation of scarce resources. Various infrastructural projects include establishing regional multipurpose youth resource centres, integrated rural youth development centres, environmental education centres, youth hostels, and youth-friendly health clinics.

The purpose of the regional multi-purpose youth resource centres is to provide regional personnel and young people, and organisations with well-equipped facilities, resources and trained personnel for the promotion and development of youth development programmes and activities. These centres will also be used to accommodate the regional youth and sport offices. Their main tasks and responsibilities are therefore as follows:

1. to receive and disseminate information on local, national and international resources,

2. to co-ordinate the activities of the centre with those of the regional office, youth groups, and

4. to plan programmes and activities for needs and expectations as identified by regional and district offices,

Two centres are being planned, one at Frans Dimbare in the Caprivi Region, and one at Warmbad in the Karas Region. Aim of theses integrated rural youth development and environmental centres are to empower rural youth by providing facilities, services and educational opportunities. By assisting rural young people in building environmental awareness, life and vocational skills, and strengthening families and communities through a participatory development approach, the ministry's project will lead to greater capacity on the part of rural youth in successfully addressing their own needs.

Specific objectives for the development of the integrated rural youth development and environmental centres include:

3. developing and implementing environmental education programmes as a way of integrating rural youth into the community-based natural resource management programmes;

4. providing rural youth with vocational skills in an informal educational setting, using experience-based learning techniques, such as, fish farming, animal husbandry, entrepreneurship, agricultural production, crafts, etc.;

5. developing and implementing programmes to assist young people in their finding or creating own employment; and

6. developing and implementing programmes through which rural youth can acquire basic life skills, such as, health education, leadership training, art and culture, recreation and sport, etc.

The aim of the youth hostels is to provide short-term, affordable, safe and clean accommodation for local and foreign young people and to provide accommodation for staff of the ministry during in-service training courses. These facilities could also be used to accommodate youth groups and workers with youth during workshops, seminars and conferences organised by the ministry; and to accommodate both local and international sport teams.

These hostels would be attached to the regional multi-purpose youth resource centres to enable rural youth to utilise the centres’ facilities.

The ministry puts great emphasis on providing the necessary in-service training to its staff to better their qualifications and skills. In this regard, training courses are scheduled each year to provide staff with the necessary skills and work experience. In addition, staff members are sent on national and international courses as needed.

Division Training and Employment

The objective of the division is to facilitate youth training and employment and co-ordinate youth entrepreneurship training. Towards fulfilling this objective, the division carries out a number of functions as follows:

2. developing and improving relevant skills to enable youth to enter the job market;

3. identifying, facilitating and co-ordinating training needs and employment opportunities;

4. co-ordinating and facilitating youth skills training and supervising the smooth running thereof;

7. co-ordinating, facilitating and assisting youth in entrepreneurship training programmes; and

To ensure the acquisition and development of relevant and marketable skills by the youth, the division

2. co-ordinate and mobilise locally, as well as internationally, efforts geared towards skills

3. harness, by conducting workshops, the latent potential skills that the youth possess; and

To plan, co-ordinate and facilitate youth entrepreneurial training programmes for unemployed young people, the division seeks to:

1. identify training needs of the young people to assist them in setting up business;

2. provide information and guidance to youth on training and employment opportunities;

3. ensure that young people who undergo training have access to appropriate credit facilities;

5. liase with Namibia National Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other NGOs on available

6. keep up-to-date records on youth enterprise training programmes and ensure that tracer studies

are carried out to determine if training provided is responsive to market demands;

7. monitor and evaluate the performance of youth income generating projects in progress; and

8. communicate and co-ordinate strategies, plans and programmes for entrepreneurial training with line ministries, private sector and NGOs.

1. to facilitate youth training and employment through the establishment of youth skills training centres, and to assist them with finding employment;

2. to develop relevant skills in conjunction with labour market demand so as to enable youth access to the job market;

3. to identify, facilitate and co-ordinate training needs for young men and women with disabilities and ensure that training and recreational facilities are built taking their needs into account;

4. to share gathered information with youth on appropriate marketable skills and where and how to obtain them;

5. to assist and facilitate the registration of unemployed youth countrywide and to pass on such information to the Ministry of Labour;

6. to establish multipurpose youth resource centres and youth hostels in all thirteen regions of Namibia, that will serve as educational, recreational and health centres for young people;

7. to sensitize both parents and youth on the causes and impact of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS, and prevention thereof; and

8. to provided young men and women with information on their legal rights and to work closely with the Ministries of Home Affairs and Justice on matters pertaining juvenile offenders and how best to rehabilitate them.

Most of the objectives for which this directorate was created for are still valid today and would continue to be valid for the foreseeable future. The accomplishment of the directorate’s objectives is a process, somewhat evolutionary. In a nutshell these objectives are:

2. to establish basic sport facilities at identified strategic points and to upgrade existing ones to international standards;

4. to ensure that each and every Namibian has the opportunity to practice the sport discipline of his/her choice;

5. to monitor the application of statutory provisions in both amateur and professional sport; and

6. to promote and, where possible, to provide professional training for sport technical staff, administrators and officials.

The Directorate of Sport is made up of two divisions, namely, the Community Sport Promotion Division, and the School Sport Promotion Division. At the helm of the directorate is a director while deputy directors head the two divisions.

In addition, there are five umbrella bodies with different responsibilities for sport development in the country, namely, National Sports Commission (NSC), Namibia National Olympic Committee (NNOC),

Namibia National Sports Council (NNSC), Namibia School Sport Union (NSSU), and Tertiary Institutions Sports Associations of Namibia (TISAN).

1. To advise the minister with regard to any matter on which the minister is required to consult the commission in terms of the Sport Act, management and development of sports in Namibia, and any matter which the minister refers to the commission for its investigation and advice.

3. To exercise control over the participation of any sports person or any national association in any international sports event.

4. To exercise control over the awarding of any national sports colours by any person or national association to any sports person or team.

5. To exercise control over the arrangement of any international sports event, any person, or national association.

The directorate secured a niche for the ministry in the national socio-economic development through measurable achievements in the last ten years are as follows:

The National Youth Council, which is an independent body, was established by an Act of Parliament to act as vanguard umbrella organization for youth and youth organizations and to advise the Ministry of Youth and Sport on all matters pertaining to young people. Its annual budget is fully funded by the ministry and has certainly succeeded in promoting youth participation in decisions that affect them. Since its inception, the council’s executive committee has worked closely with the ministry in establishing infrastructure regionally to enhance communication between urban and rural youth. The council also funds youth income generating projects, annual youth EXPO and other programmes and activities for the youth. The latest achievement of the council, in conjunction with its mother body, the Ministry of Youth and Sport, was the holding of the Second National Youth Conference, from 4 to 6 August 1999.

These centres refer to vocational institutions targeting unemployed youth and school dropouts with emphasis on those unable to access vocational training centres of the Ministry of Higher Education, Vocational Training, Science and Technology. In other words, these centres act like a “bridge” between the unemployed, and in most cases uneducated, youth and vocational training centres. They offer one-year skills training in carpentry, bricklaying, welding, tailoring, hospitality training and plumbing.

There are currently two of such centres, one at Kai//Ganaxab in Mariental, with an annual intake of some thirty trainees, and one at Okahao. Budgetary provision has been made in the next financial year (2000/2001) for the expansion of the Okahao Centre in order to increase its capacity.

By the end of 1998, these centres produced approximately 515 graduates in various disciplines, and the majority of them were fortunate enough to obtain employment right away. However, Namibia with a small private sector will be unable to absorb all our trainees, and, therefore, there is a need to provide to these qualified trainees access to credit facilities for starting their own business – may be in the form of co-operatives.

With effect from 1 April 2000, additional youth skills training centres will become operational, one in the Omaheke Region and the other in the Erongo Region. Erongo Region’s Centre will be a hospitality training centre, while the Omaheke one will concentrate more on agriculture.

The programmes aim at engaging the youth in meaningful production activities and income generating enterprises geared to instil self-esteem and the spirit of self-reliance amongst the youth. So far, various youth projects have been set up to produce leather products, agricultural products, and brick making, and to provide eco-tourism and recreational facilities. With additional funding from NGOs and international organizations awaited in the next financial year, the idea of youth becoming their own bosses appears to be paying off.

These facilities bring multi-programmes and activities under one roof. Four such centres have become fully operational, in each in the Oshana Region (Oshakati); Erongo Region (Swakopmund), Hardap Region (Keetmanshoop) and Omusati Region (Outapi). Plans are underway to build similar centres in all our thirteen regions.

Briefly, these centres offer cheap and affordable accommodation for young men and women (local and international); programmes pertaining to youth health, such as, reproductive health, peer counseling; HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention; juvenile justice programme for young offenders; income generating activities; and environmental education. These centres also serve as conference facilities for the government and the NGOs, including youth organizations and church groups.

This scheme offers an experimental learning environment for high school graduates and school dropouts (unemployed) and aims at involving the youth in national economic development. First fifty Grade 12 graduates will complete one year voluntary community service in the year 2000 before joining institutions of higher education in 2001. The second group will include fifty Grade 12 and 200 Grade 10 and school dropouts by September 2000.

While Grade 12 participants are destined for further studies, those without Grade 12 will join vocational training centres for two years after completing their one year-voluntary community service. The programme will become permanent once the piloting currently underway proves its worth.

Before independence there was neither a sport policy nor appropriate to govern the administration of sport in the country. As a result, inequalities of the previous dispensation were quite rampant in sport too. In many instances, some sport-disciplines were only for the privileged urban elite. Therefore, a Sport Policy for the Development of Sport for all Namibians was formulated, followed by the enactment of an Act of Parliament to enforce it. Ideas behind these legal instruments were to give each and every Namibian equal opportunity to participate in the sport-code of his/her choice and to redress inequalities of the past.

Coaching Cinics

Soon after Namibia became independent, the government, in conjunction with Namibia Sport Council, embarked upon a programme of training trainers in the various sport-disciplines all over the country. Much has been achieved; many sport people in the regions are now exposed to sport-codes that were unknown to them earlier. Sport-codes like hockey, volleyball, and, to some extent, tennis, previously known only in urban areas, are now finding expression in the regions. However great deal still needs to be done. Again, as with many aspect of sport, many of them are ongoing projects.

In coaching clinics, teachers and local club coaches were trained with the latest techniques for the promotion of sport. Approximately 8500 coaches have so far been trained through these programmes and there is no doubt that they are making a difference in our effort for the upliftment of the standard of sport in the country.

Participation

During the last decade, Namibia participated successfully in many international events. Many individual sport-codes also participated in many international events. In multi-sport-disciplines events, Namibia took part in two Olympic Games, two Commonwealth Games, and three All Africa Games.

Regional Games

In the past, there was an outcry that national teams in various sport-codes were selected only from athletes in urban areas. Therefore, the ministry decided to have regional games where all the thirteen regions could participate. Games were open only to athletes who had never been called up for national duties. Rational behind these games was to expose undiscovered talent, especially in remote areas.

Due to financial constraints, only soccer, athletics, netball and volleyball featured this year. If funds permit, more codes will be added to the list in the future.

The Ministry of Youth and Sport joined other ministries and government agencies through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in signing different permanent joint commissions of co-operation on youth and sport related matters.

On soccer, the ministry has agreement with Germany allowing Mr. P Ueberjahn, the current coach of the National Team, to be seconded to this ministry. German football expert will continue to be available to Namibia on a long-term basis. The ministry has also a very fruitful and intensive exchange programme in the field of youth football between Namibia and the Westfalia Regional Association of the German Football Federation.

Pursuant to the Agreement on Economic, Technical, Scientific and Cultural Co-operation, which provides for the establishment of a Joint Permanent Commission of Co-operation between Namibia and Cuba, the ministry recently received two sport coaching experts in basketball and boxing from Cuba. They did an excellent job to the development of sport in Namibia. In the same vain, seven sport coaches are expected to arrive in Namibia from Cuba in the field of boxing, wrestling, basketball, volleyball and athletics.

The National Sport Commission has successfully solved the conflicts of different sport-codes. The commission together with the Ministry of Youth and Sport put up a National Soccer Team Interim Committee to run the national soccer team’s activities. The Namibia Football Association today is enjoying a better administration as a result of the efforts of the ministry and the commission.

In addition, the ministry and the commission have dealt with similar problems of the Rugby Union and conflict was successfully resolved. Sport-codes’ problems for the Athletic Union and other sports disciplines were also handled by the commission.

The Namibia National Olympic Committee (NNOC) was established in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which approved the membership of NNOC in 1991. NNOC may receive money or property by way of donation, bequest or in trust and may control, use or administer it subject to conditions, if any, of such donations, bequest or trust as long as they are consistent with the aims of NNOC. Overall, NNOC strives to:

1. ensure the development and protection of the Olympic Movement and sport in general;

4. organise, together with the respective controlling bodies of sport, selection of teams to represent Namibia at the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, and at regional, continental and intercontinental games under the patronage of IOC;

6. submit proposals to IOC with regard to the Olympic Charter, the Olympic Movement in general, as well as the organisation and conduct of the Olympic Games; and

7. collaborate with private or government bodies to ensure the promotion of a sound sport policy for Namibia.

NNOC has, together with the Ministry of Youth and Sport, organised and prepared Namibia’s national teams to participate in various Olympic Games, Youth Games, All Africa Games, and Commonwealth Games.

The Namibia National Sport Council (NNSC) is the implementing agent of the ministry and the National Sports Commission for senior sport in Namibia. NNSC was established in March 1990 when Namibia received its independence. It is one of the partners in Namibian sport and has a close relationship with the ministry in working at grassroots level. Aims and objectives of NNSC include:

2. ensuring that no racial, religious, political or other form of discrimination is allowed in sport;

3. ensuring uniformity of national sports emblems, badges, colours and dress and controlling the awarding, issuing and wearing thereof;

7. facilitating the participation in sport at club, regional, national and international levels;

8. co-ordinating and promoting the provision and availability of sports facilities and equipment in all areas and to the advantage of all communities in Namibia;

The Namibia National Sports Council can be credited with a number of successes and can take pride in the fact that:

1. Namibia attended with great honours the Olympic Games in Barcelona and Atlanta and is preparing to participate in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

2. Namibia participated in the 1995 All Africa Games in Zimbabwe and more recently in the Seventh All African Games, in South Africa.

3. Namibia participated in the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada in 1994 and in the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998.

4. Namibia sent a multi-disciplined team to the Youth Games staged in Moscow during June 1998. During these events, Cecilia Iikango won a silver medal in the 3000m.

5. Without doubt, Frank Fredericks is Namibia’s most successful and celebrated athletics star with numerous international medals. He is also currently the 200m indoor world champion.

6. On the soccer field, Namibia excelled by participating in the Africa Cup of Nations held in Burkina Faso in 1998. The Brave Warriors played against Angola in the finals in the COSAFA Cup 1999.

8. Bobby Joe Bassingthwaighte was the first Namibian to swim the English Channel.

Namibia Schools Sport Union (NSSU), established on 26 November 1992, is a statutory body responsible for all the schools sport activities. It receives a grant yearly from the Ministry of Youth and Sport for schools sport activities. Sport-codes affiliated to the NSSU include: athletics, soccer, netball, volleyball, boxing, rugby, basketball, cricket, chess, and hockey.

1. promoting all sport-codes in primary, secondary and private schools in the country;

2. developing specific sporting codes at school level and providing sound basics for future national teams;

3. developing schools sport in underdeveloped areas, and creating a balance between different regions;

4. fostering good relations between learners through participation in sport; and

1. Primary and secondary national schools teams represented Namibia in different sport disciplines in international events; one primary school athlete won a gold medal and three more athletes in athletics received bonze medals.

2. Namibia’s youth national team participated in World Youth Games in Moscow where Cecilia Iikango won second place in 3000m and received a silver medal.

3. The Gothia Soccer Cup matches were held in Gotenborg Sweden in 1998. Six matches were played and Namibia came second out of fifty-two teams. Quinton Jacobs caught the eye of expert representatives of Manchester United Football Club.

4. The under 17 soccer team visited Westfalia in Germany for a series of games. Many of these team members represented, through Namibia Football Association (NFA), in Swaziland.

The Tertiary Institutions Sports Association of Namibia (TISAN) was established in 1990 and registered with the Ministry of Youth and Sport and other sports organizations. The association started with only three members back in 1990, being Windhoek College of Education, Academy, and Neudamm. Since then the membership has grown to seventeen. These include:

1. developing, encouraging and supervising sports for students at tertiary level;

3. promoting the highest standard of sporting achievement, conduct, discipline and sportsmanship amongst members;

7. regulating the use of sporting facilities by members in liaison with appropriate institutions;

8. seeking recognition as the body representing the interest of sports and members; and

9. ensuring that no racial, religious, political or any other form of discrimination is practised amongst its members.

Tertiary Institutions Sports Association of Namibia has achieved numerous successes as follows:

1. TISAN games have been presented in numerous codes as follows: netball, rugby, soccer (1990); athletics, netball, rugby, soccer, basketball (1991), and volleyball athletics, netball, rugby, soccer, basketball, volleyball, table tennis, tennis (1992). From 1993 onwards, the core codes were presented with additional codes as competition demanded.

2. TISAN is a founding member of the Confederation of University and College of Sport in Southern Africa (CUCSA) which was established in Namibia in 1990 with three countries, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. CUCSA now has ten member states.

3. Members of CUCSA Zone VI are: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

4. TISAN participated in CUCSA Zone VI held in: Namibia (1990), Zambia, Zimbabwe (1991), Swaziland (1992), Zimbabwe (1993), Botswana (1994: overall Namibia secured first position), Namibia (1995: overall Namibia secured first position), Malawi (1996: overall Namibia secured second position), Zimbabwe (1997: overall Namibia secured position), South Africa (1998: overall Namibia secured fourth position), and Zambia (1998).

5. TISAN joined the International University Sports Federation in 1990 and attended the Summer Universities (World Student Games) in Sheffield, UK with two athletes (1991), Buffalo, USA with fifteen athletes (1993), Fukuoka, Japan with thirteen athletes (1995), Cicily, Italy with fourteen athletes (1997), and Palma, Spain with three athletes (1999). At Palma our athletes showed very good progress, with C. Van Wyk qualifying for semi-finals in 200m.

Sport Facilities

At the time Namibia became independent, sport facilities existed mostly only in urban areas and largely in the hitherto “white” only areas. Therefore, to enable each and every Namibian to participate in sport, the ministry constructed sport-facilities in towns all over the country. Of course, due to budgetary constraints, facilities cannot be built simultaneously, that is why it is an on going process.

Since independence, basic sport-facilities have been completed at Katima Mulilo, Rundu, Opuwo, Khorixas, Mariental, Windhoek, and Lüderitz. The ministry also expects facilities at Oshakati, Ondangwa, and Swakopmund to be completed very soon.

Vision 2030

The ministry envisions continuation of the existing programmes and activities in as long as they remain the focal point for youth empowerment through development and improvement of relevant and marketable skills. In this striving, the ministry will continue to identify and co-ordinate youth entrepreneurial training endeavors thereby accessing the youth to market forces, and, in so doing, make significant contribution to national socio-economic development.

Development of sport is a never-ending process. Success at one level presents challenges at the next level. For example, if an athlete wins at the All Africa Games, his/her next challenge is the Commonwealth Games, and if he/she is successful at that level, the next challenges become the Olympic Games. Furthermore, there is a constant need for grooming new athletes. Therefore, one never reaches a permanent pinnacle in sport development – continued striving is essential. Nevertheless, by the year 2030, the ministry envisions accomplishing the following:

2. all the regions to have qualified coaches in most of the popular sport disciplines;

3. to have an established sport school/academy where talented youngsters from all over the country can receive professional training in various sport fields; and

4. to have reached a stage where national teams are selected on merit and yet being demographically representative of the Namibia population, without resorting either to quotas and/or affirmative action.

Challenges for the New Millennium

The challenges facing the ministry for the next three decades are basically the same as our Vision 2030 but with only a few additions. The first challenge of this ministry is to overcome its budgetary constraints. The ministry is expected to do a lot, but the budget is too small. For instance, too many talented athletes cannot further their careers because of financial difficulties, and the ministry would like to be in a position to assist them with athletic bursaries.

The other challenge of the ministry is to overcome the problem of lack of staff. The ministry has one or two staff members in regional offices and it makes it difficult for them to plan and control activities in their various regions. The lower grading of staff’s salaries is one of the challenges beyond our control, but it has forced some of our well-qualified staff members to leave the ministry for better pay at other ministries.

Another big challenge facing the ministry is lack of sport training courses. A lot of courses are accessible in different fields, but so far no efforts have been made to provide this ministry with sport courses in order to give opportunity to our staff members to improve their skills. At least we need to be able to produce our own sport cadres rather than always depending on foreign experts and volunteers.

Finally the structure of the ministry needs to be revamped to overcome inherited disadvantages that hamper the development of sport in the country.

1. to receive and disseminate information on local, national and international resources,

2. to co-ordinate the activities of the centre with those of the regional office, youth groups, and

workers with youth in the region,

3. to provide counselling services,

4. to plan programmes and activities for needs and expectations as identified by regional and district offices,

5. to develop and share resources as needed by the region,

6. to provide exhibition facilities as needed by the community, and

7. to provide youth friendly reproductive health services.

Integrated Rural Youth Development Centres

Specific objectives for the development of the integrated rural youth development and environmental centres include:

1. erection of buildings for day to day operations of the centres;

2. procurement of the necessary technical equipment and teaching aids;

3. developing and implementing environmental education programmes as a way of integrating rural youth into the community-based natural resource management programmes;

5. developing and implementing programmes to assist young people in their finding or creating own employment; and

6. developing and implementing programmes through which rural youth can acquire basic life skills, such as, health education, leadership training, art and culture, recreation and sport, etc.

Youth Hostels

These hostels would be attached to the regional multi-purpose youth resource centres to enable rural youth to utilise the centres’ facilities.

Human Resource Development

Division Training and Employment

1. preparing the youth for labour the market;

2. developing and improving relevant skills to enable youth to enter the job market;

3. identifying, facilitating and co-ordinating training needs and employment opportunities;

4. co-ordinating and facilitating youth skills training and supervising the smooth running thereof;

5. co-ordinating and facilitating youth career guidance;

6. planning, co-ordinating and implementing the National Youth Service Scheme;

7. co-ordinating, facilitating and assisting youth in entrepreneurship training programmes; and

8. providing the youth access to credit facilities.

Youth Skills Training

To ensure the acquisition and development of relevant and marketable skills by the youth, the division

strives to:

1. develop, monitor and evaluate relevant and marketable skills for the youth;

2. co-ordinate and mobilise locally, as well as internationally, efforts geared towards skills

development;

3. harness, by conducting workshops, the latent potential skills that the youth possess; and

4. provide appropriate information and relevant skills to youth.

Youth Entrepreneurial Training Programme