Ndaitwah urges tailored response to boys’ crisis

Namibia’s first gentleman, Epaphras Denga Ndaitwah, has urged organisations to stop recycling girls’ programmes for boys and to design interventions around boys’ own specific needs.

He made the remarks at the male engagement symposium in Windhoek last Wednesday, held under the theme ‘Coordinating Namibia’s Work with Men and Boys for Gender Equality Wellbeing in Namibia’.

“Boys and girls are equal in dignity, but not the same in their needs. A programme designed for girls cannot simply be renamed and handed to boys. Let us therefore create programmes that respond to the unique needs of boys,” he said.

Ndaitwah urged organisations to move beyond isolated initiatives and work towards a coordinated national response, with commitments that translate into practical action.

He also called for greater efforts to reach the boys who are hardest to reach, saying no child should be left out of the empowerment agenda.

Lagging behind in education

Ndaitwah said the third National Gender Equality and Equity Policy (2025-2035) recognises that male students are lagging in higher education and calls for affirmative action to address the imbalance.

University of Namibia vice-chancellor Professor Kenneth Matengu said in September that women made up 65.5% of the 4 350 students who graduated in April, while men accounted for 34.5%.

At the Namibia University of Science and Technology, official figures for 2024 show that women accounted for 2 023 of the university’s 3 591 graduates, compared with 1 568 men. However, men slightly outnumbered women in enrolment that year, with 9 343 male students against 9 142 female students.

Deadly crisis

Ndaitwah stressed that empowering boys should strengthen the gains Namibia has made for girls.

He said this approach underpins the DEN Impact Foundation, which he launched on 18 August to address what he described as a “boy child crisis”.

The foundation aims to empower boys through sport, agriculture, technical training, skills development and character building.

“Another worrisome trend worth noting is the crisis of male mental health and a deep-seated culture of silence that drives disproportionately high rates of suicide among boys and men,” he said.

Recent figures from the deputy inspector general for operations, Major General Elias Mutota, show Namibia recorded 486 suicide deaths in the 2025/26 financial year.

Of these, 390 were men, 83 were women, nine were boys and four were girls. Men and boys together accounted for about 82% of the deaths.