Innovative way of transferring education and training facilities in Namibia:The Adult Skills Development for Self Employment pilot project

This paper investigates new ways to transfer entrepreneurial education to previously disadvantaged individuals. It analyses the case of the ASDSE project, implemented in the form of partnership between the Namibian Government, a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) and a commercial bank. The main concept was to train the District Learner Officials already in the field for the National Literacy Programme in Namibia (NLPN), and at a later stage to assign them to the tasks of selecting, training and monitoring the entrepreneurs. Since the launch of this project 330 loans amounting to N$ 770,000 (US$ 150,000) were disbursed to unemployed and underemployed Namibians, 70% of which are women, the majority being heads of households. Previously, to receive the loan, each entrepreneur had to receive extensive training on basic entrepreneurial skills. It is encouraging to note that to date, thanks to the constant follow-up of the entrepreneurs, the repayment rate by entrepreneurs is 98% with only 2% defaults.