Brazil has expressed its willingness to collaborate with the Namibia Training Authority and share its wealth of experience and proficiency, especially as it relates to potential strategic TVET partnerships in the development of technical and vocational skills for the energy sector.
At a meeting on 27 January 2025 at the Brazilian Embassy, Her Excellency, Vivian Loss San Martin, Ambassador of Brazil to Namibia, said such collaboration would dovetail into the excellent historical ties of cooperation that exist between the respective countries as neighbours across the Atlantic Ocean, notably in the areas of defense, naval operations, trade and food security.
Brazil is now among the top ten oil producers in the world, surpassing Mexico and Venezuela to become Latin America’s biggest oil producer. “We are very open to sharing our expertise and experience in how we have developed our workforce towards a fit-for-purpose technical and vocational skills system for Brazil’s energy sector, which underlie our efficient production and growth”, she added.
On his part, CEO, Erick Fundula Nenghwanya highlighted that the NTA was keen to learn from Brazil, stressing that TVET had a pivotal role in shaping a skilled national workforce to support the agenda of transforming our economy by filling skills gaps and meeting evolving industry needs.
“Brazil has lots to offer us, especially in terms of the development of prioritised and specialised Namibian Oil and Gas TVET qualifications, as well as the upskilling and reskilling of Namibian TVET graduates and trainers through exchange and attachment opportunities at Brazilian Oil and Gas TVET institutions”, he said.
“Other areas include the enhancement of Namibian TVET policy instruments in terms of accreditation, standardisation, certification, quality, safety and sustainability, as well as technical and policy guidance and support to Namibia’s TVET sector to be able to meet and maintain international standards and requirements, for example that of the Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation (OPITO) and the International Well Control Forum (IWCF)”, the CEO added.
The CEO expressed his commitment to the Ambassador to ensure that collaboration is intensified towards a substantive agreement. “It’s still early days and a lot of work lies ahead for both teams. However, we have committed ourselves towards ensuring that we derive value from Brazil and tap into that country’s wealth of experience in terms of how it went about in ensuring that it generated skills to support its thriving Oil and Gas sector”, the CEO concluded.