Namibia's Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises sector (MSMEs) is the backbone of the national economy, but many businesses remain constrained by limited access to markets, finance, and structured development support.

Thus, the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI), in collaboration with the Namibia Investment and Finance Academy (NIFA), signed a three-year Memorandum of Agreement (MoA).

This agreement is aimed at accelerating the structured graduation of Namibian MSMEs and unlocking meaningful employment pathways for interns and graduates.

Thousands of graduates continue to face barriers to meaningful work experience and private sector entry.

In an effort to find solutions to unemployment and get graduates off the street, the two organisations signed the MoA.

This directly addresses both challenges by combining enterprise development with practical employment pathways to create a single, integrated pipeline that connects skills, employment, and enterprise growth. 

The chief executive officer of NIFA, Arinze Okafor, says, "The areas we will be collaborating on number one being MSME investment readiness. And I deliberately do not focus on capacity building because I think it's necessary. There are a lot of training initiatives, but ultimately we need to focus on an end goal, which is for SMEs to be investment-ready. Secondly, it's market access and supply chain integration. Again, that's practical. After an SME is ready, how do we link them into the supply chains across the private sector and also the government? And lastly, one that's very close to my heart, so this one I put on the table is my pure conflict. I'm a product of an internship system. So we're also working together to accelerate internship and graduate workforce development because we produce a lot of graduates, but we have high graduate unemployment.

And then sometimes employers say what we're producing is not relevant for what we need. But I think as a private sector, and I think that's really the work I believe in; then, together with the chamber, we'll be able to practicalise a better sort of internship and graduate pathway."

The partnership integrates four core pillars: enterprise development and investment readiness; market access and supplier linkages; internship and graduate placement programmes; and skills development aligned to private sector needs. 

The initiative introduces a coordinated approach to economic development, linking skills, employment, and enterprise growth into one integrated pipeline. 

Titus Nampala is NCCI's CEO. 

"As a country, we continue to discuss economic growth, youth unemployment, and enterprise sustainability, as well as industrialisation of our economy. And these are becoming very increasingly urgent. And partnerships like this are not only valuable; they are essential. We know that economic growth alone is insufficient if businesses are unable to scale, if young people remain disconnected from opportunities, and if MSMEs continue to operate without structured pathways into formal markets and sustainable growth. The collaboration between the NCCI and NIFA is a practical and deliberate response to these realities. It reflects a shared understanding that enterprise development must move beyond fragmented support towards coordinated, measurable, and scalable interventions."