ipumbu shiimi : credit information management in namibia welcoming remarks by mr ipumbu shiimi, governor of the bank of namibia, at the credit information workshop, windhoek, 19 august 2013. * * * director of ceremony mr. darrel beghin, executive director, south african credit providers association ms. mojgan derakhshani and daniel kanyi from finmark trust representatives of credit bureaus, representatives of lending institutions, distinguished invited guests, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen, good morning! i am pleased to be here this morning and thank you for the invitation to open this important workshop on credit information, a topical subject of interest to namibia. allow me therefore, director of ceremony, to extend my gratitude appreciation to finmark trust for this initiative. i am informed that the overarching objective of the workshop is to share the outcome of the fact finding mission to namibia conducted by finmark trust in march this year and also to share the south african experience in credit information management. ladies and gentlemen, this workshop comes at an opportune time for namibia. why do i say that? three reasons come to mind. first, namibia in general and the bank of namibia in particular, are vigorously pursuing a financial inclusion agenda. this is underpinned by the launch of the namibia financial sector strategy in august 2012 by the honourable minister of finance. this strategy represents a long - term development strategy for the namibian financial sector. one of the goals of this strategy is to reduce financial exclusion from baseline of 51. 7 % financial exclusion determined in 2007 to 26 % percent by 2021. the good news is that we have made significant progress in this regard, financial exclusion has fallen since 2007, it now stands at 31 %. but we still have some work to do to achieve the goal of financial inclusion. a good credit information system is a necessity for financial inclusion and this is what i would like to talk about in my remarks today. first, what is the importance of a good credit information system? three reasons : a. research has shown that there is a positive correlation between the credit information system through the presence of credit registries / bureaus in an economy and access to finance. this is because credit information sharing plays a critical role in the financial sector in facilitating access to finance to people who are in need of funding. this is achieved by availing information on borrowers ’ credit worthiness to lenders. this helps lenders with credit assessment, meaning

tom alweendo : the use of small and medium size enterprises ( smmes ) to reduce poverty keynote address by mr tom alweendo, governor of the bank of namibia, at the opening ceremony of the 6th african development finance conference and smme awards, cape town, 20 - 21 october 2004. * * * chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be with you this morning. i consider this an honour and a privilege to be invited to give the keynote address to this distinguished gathering of academics and policymakers. i would like to thank the organisers for inviting me to speak at this important conference. at the beginning of the new century, the global economy woke up to the reality of the need to rid the world of poverty, promote human dignity and equality and achieve peace, democracy and environmental sustainability. that realization found expression in the millennium declaration which gave birth to the millennium development goals ( mdg ). the mdgs focus on a core set of values that developing countries must achieve by the year 2015 in order to better their present living conditions and launch themselves on a path of sustainable growth. among others, the mdgs aim at eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality and empower women, combating hiv / aids, malaria and other diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability. the reduction of poverty is regarded as central to the achievement of the mdgs and has been given a lot of attention by policymakers in both developed and developing countries. poverty is observed to be closely related to malnutrition, lack of education, low life expectancy, high mortality rate and substandard housing. both the urban and rural poor lack access to basic services such as water and sanitation, electricity and telecommunications. accordingly, governments have devised two broad policy interventions to ameliorate the conditions of the poor. the first such strategy is indirect. it is designed to accelerate growth and to direct the flow of growth benefits to the poor. it involves encouraging countries to adopt market based resource allocation techniques which emphasizes competition as a basis for sustained economic growth, ensuring greater availability of land to the poor through land reforms, creating productive employment opportunities through better land utilization and ensuring greater accessibility of the poor to social services. the second set of policies is intended to reduce poverty by providing consumption entitlements to the poor in the short term and redistributing incomes in favour of the poor. public provision of education, health, nutrition and housing form the core of this strategy.