Youth Entrepreneurship and SME Challenges: Namibia in the COVID-19 Scenario

Introduction

Towards the end of 2019, China was the epicenter of the coronavirus (COVID-19). However, the world was caught by surprise in early 2020 when the novel coronavirus spread across the global sphere (Cortez and Johnston, 2020). Covid-19 brought with its numerous challenges especially the SMEs which are critical engines of growth, employment and innovation for most developing economies (Latha and Murthy, 2019). Unlike previous viruses which were easier to contain as they were geographically specific, such as the SARS in Northern Asia and MERS in the middle East, this new form of coronavirus easily splurges to the other parts of the globe (World Health Organisation, 2020). This has indeed changed the way business is conducted across nations in the world as most of the national, regional and international borders has been closed (shutdown) (Alon et al., 2020).

In Namibia, the way people view business or entrepreneurship has also changed tremendously. There are a number of natural disasters such as bushfires, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and extensive drought that business owners are mostly familiar with, but a health crisis such as Covid-19 has affected society worldwide beyond what they could possibly imagine. Zooming back exactly ten decades ago from 1918-1920 the Spanish flu pandemic has hit the world very hard (Kraus et al., 2020). This has actually resulted in a number of nations adopting new health regulations and the conditions of work, however developing nations such as Namibia, who were almost non-existent in those years are indeed ill prepared for such changes.

Other worldwide crisis’s such as September 11 in 200, as a result of terrorist attack in the United States of America (USA), had a major economic impact, but the impact of COVID-19 both in terms of health and working conditions/ entrepreneurship is insurmountable. Prior to COVID-19 working from home could easily be viewed as a luxury and if one would have advocated for it in developing nations such as Namibia, it was almost impossible or frown upon. However, today and in the future conducting business following social distancing guidelines appears to be the new normal. People are forced to work from home, as the cost of living has increased and to sustain a family is a great effort (Otache, 2020). Working from home has even become more important, if you do not have medical aid and is also scared to catch the virus. Although the disease broke out in China, Namibia has recorded 12, 460 cases of which 10 609 has recovered. The first Namibian case was recorded on March 13, 2020: with Romanian couple who travelled to Namibia at that time. The total number of deaths till date are 133.

Given Namibia’s small population there is no denying that the pandemic has brought hardships for the Namibian people as they have lost their jobs. Various sectors of the economy have been impacted. These are education, banking, sports, agriculture, aviation, transportation and hospitality to name a few. In addition, this pandemic has forced people from travelling abroad to conduct business or study and also cancellations on hotel and travel (Otache, 2020). The primary objective of this chapter is to discuss the impact of Covid 19 on young entrepreneurs in Namibia. In addition, the chapter intends to explore remedial actions, as to how Namibia can deal with COVID-19.

The symptoms of COVID- 19 are fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, running nose amongst many others (Harapan et al., 2020). It is a highly communicable disease (Adnan et al., 2020) and the mode of transmission is from person to person. This unprecedented virus is mostly transferred through respiratory droplets released when an infected person coughs or sneezes (Harapan et al., 2020). There is no definite cure for the virus at this point in time, but hygiene habits such as the washing of hands, wearing of face masks and covering of the mouth with a handkerchief when coughing or sneezing is strongly recommended to contain the spread of the virus (Ohia et al., 2020). This chapter will first give a brief overview of the Republic of Namibia, followed by the challenges Namibian SME owner/entrepreneurs face as a result of this pandemic. Thereafter, an entrepreneurial response to the COVID-19 crises will be highlighted. This will be followed by a discussion on the research methodology and discussion of the findings. Managerial implications for practice will also be outlined, followed by suggestions for future research and conclusion. The next section of this chapter will give a brief overview of the Republic of Namibia.