WINDHOEK – The Ministry of Veterans Affairs under the Vice-President’s Office last week launched a regional economic opportunities (REOs) guideline booklet for individual veterans’ projects (IVPs) to assist veterans with project selection.
The booklet was unveiled at a ceremony held in Windhoek. The booklet provides a variety of projects for veterans to choose from and assists the veterans board to approve funding of projects that are viable in line with regional economic development goals. The booklet also guides veterans to initiate projects of economic relevance to a specific region.
The guidelines are a result of the stakeholder’s consultative workshop that took place in June 2017 that included all governors, chairpersons of regional councils, chief regional officers and directors of planning and development to share information on available economic opportunities in their respective regions.
According to the veterans affairs ministry’s chief economist Vinea Sinalumbu the REOs are guidelines that describe the types of sustainable individual projects that veterans of the national liberation struggle can engage in, to make a meaningful contribution to the socio-economic development of their specific region in line with regional economic development goals.
He said the booklet will be reviewed every five years because the market is not constant.
In the booklet, endorsed projects are listed per region, for example in Kavango East veterans can embark on projects such as freshwater fishing, commercial aquaculture and timber production and processing, amongst others.
There are 30,245 registered veterans in the country while there are 21,585 individual project applications with 11,057 projects funded.
Veterans Affairs Deputy Minister Hilma Nicanor said the REO guidelines will address the challenges of saturation of similar individual projects in one area and further enhance conducive business opportunities for veterans in their respective regions.
“I want to encourage our veterans to align their IVPs to the adopted project types per region, as indicated in the guidelines. This will not only contribute to coordination of projects and programmes, but harmonisation of economic activities toward integration of veterans into the country’s economic mainstream,” advised Nicanor.
She further urged the ministry that the money spent on socio-economic programmes add value and make a positive impact toward veterans’ social well-being, their dependents and economic advancement of the country at large.
She said the guidelines were developed in a bottom-top approach and are deemed to be feasible and viable by the stakeholders who are directly involved in planning and implementation of developmental activities at the regional level.