Namibia's labour movement which emerged as a significant organisational force in the second half of the 1980s, remains a key player among grassroots organisations in the country. Having played a prominent role in Namibia's struggle for liberation from colonial rule, the trade unions had to define a new role for themselves when national independence finally came in 1990.

Their primary challenges were to improve workers' lives through collective bargaining and devise strategies to influence broader socio-economic policies in favour of their constituency. To meet these and other challenges, they had to address a wide range of complex research and training needs.

Most of Namibia's trade unions have no formal research capacity, and until 1998 there was no organisation in the country dedicated to providing specifically labour-related research and training services to the labour movement. Unlike South Africa, which has a well-developed NGO community, a network of labour service organisations and a relatively well resourced labour movement - Namibia had neither a systematic worker education system nor a policy research unit servicing trade unions.

The institute aims to assist the Namibian labour movement in building its capacity by means of :