The Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service in collaboration with the National Youth Council (NYC) launched the youth self-employment project in horticulture at Eheke in Ondangwa Rural in the Oshana Region today. The horticulture project is aimed at encouraging and creating employment opportunities for young people to produce crops and vegetables for food security. With 62% of Namibia's economically active population being the youth, 38% are unemployed. The horticulture project will increase youth skills, productivity and income potential for out of school youth in peri-urban and rural areas. The project to be run by six youths, over the years, seeks to provide 84 disadvantaged youth between the ages of 16 to 35 with access to business development services through horticulture to realise their full economic potential. The project will be scaled to all 14 regions for young people to become self-reliant in food production, income generation and employment creation. Youth are Namibia's greatest asset and their population is growing rapidly and it is expected to double by 2050. It is therefore vital to establish income-generating projects for the youth to empower them economically.