The African Development Bank’s billion dollars digital inclusion program focused on Coding and app development initiative kicks off with half a million digital candidates selected from the nooks and crannies of West Africa and Kenya. The AfDB is keen on driving the African labour market with up to fifty million available jobs for the African youths skilled in either digital management, technology development, digital security, or digital applications.
Since 2018, the African Development Bank has been influencing the continental socio-economic ecosystem whereby schooling the African youth with information and communication technology skills to acquire ICT-based jobs on demand. According to the AfDB selection for its digital ambassadorship program that will school the preferred candidates on ICT-related courses software development, application development, digital management and communication, and other acquirable digital skills that can be learned within three months timeline.
The five hundred selected candidates are often referred to as Digital Ambassadors by the AfDB which intends to solely modify the African youth to be skillful digital-wise. The Coding empowerment program is a consortium of the African Development Bank and Microsoft that will head the coding program as its tutor focused on digital security and application. The selected five hundred candidates are filtered from the twenty-one thousand applicants that registered from around the African digital space in which 45% of the 500 preferred candidates are women. Most candidates apply through the Coding for Employment eLearning platform and the Digital Nigeria platform.
Still, the AfDB and Microsoft focus on the West African region in selecting African youths imbibed with maximum potential. Senegal produced the most candidate seconded by Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire offered the least number of candidates. Candidates from Kenya were also enlisted which makes the five hundred candidate selection diversified cutting across east and western Africa based in underserved communities having access to limited or zero internet connectivity.
The AfDB Director of Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development, Martha Phiri revealed her company’s commitment to driving skill development suitable for the employed productivity schemed for three years selecting preferred candidates for a three-month digital course in preparation for a developed economy. By 2025, the selected African youths will be schooled to serve the labour market with high-demand digital skills. “Both will complement each other and will create a positive impact on Africa’s workforce and lead to economic transformation.”
“We are delighted by the enthusiasm and the passion the candidates have shown for the program. We have sifted through all the applications to identify candidates whose backgrounds and qualifications closely match the selection criteria. The 500 candidates will not only acquire skills that can help them find work but will also be able to create their jobs while also training others,” the AfDB Manager for Education and Skills Development, Hendrina Doroba
The digital empowerment program by the AfDB and Microsoft gives participants of its training certifications that allow the individual undergoing its digital program to acquire high-demand jobs as well as being suitable to educate other unskilled African youths based in underserved communities. Recall that Microsoft and the AfDB have been influencing the African digital ecosystem since 2018 to have established a consortium with partnered universities and inaugurating ICT centres that have trained thousands of youths since 2018.
The AfDB selection protocol is based on discovering digital-inclined talents upholding a solid network of ICT courses that scanned through underserved communities in search of the best. The digital inclusion program posed as a skill development exercise for Africans stays focused on improving the standard of wealth in the continent which is not easily attained but comes in handy by developing skilled labour market towards employable production of digital inclined innovation.
