It is very common to observe complaints of local, African corporates using global workforce over national/African workers, about the lack of appropriate skills in the continent. This poses the serious question of how prepared the African workforce is to compete in the global stage. The continent must indeed adopt a pragmatic, non-emotional, and organized approach to quickly bridge potential capacity gaps in Africa and ensure that our human resources can meaningfully contribute to the continent’s development and provide leadership in innovation across all fields. For its potential to be transformed into reality, many problems must be addressed:
- Lack of skills to participate in the modern labour market & digital economy: 625 million people in Africa will need digital skills by 2030 to be able to compete in participate in the labour market. The World Bank
- La Digitalization Gap / Digital Skills Index. Brookings, shows a large and persistent digital skills gap in sub-saharian Africa. The digital skills indicators in the region lags the G20 mean and displays very weak performance for the digitalization dimensions.
- The African Development Bank (AfDB), highlights skills as challenge for digital transformation in its Digital Transformation Action Plan (DTAP) 2024–2028 and places workforce upskilling as central to unlocking investment. African Development Bank VCDA+1
- Growing but still significantly insufficient Technical & vocational education (TVET): UNESCO’s UNEVOC biennial report highlights efforts to scale TVET but notes large gaps in relevance, quality and access that leave many youths in Africa without the technical competencies needed by employers. UNESCO-UNEVOC
- Empirical analyses find evidence of structural mismatch — labour market demand for digital and technical tasks is rising faster than supply; task-based measures and online job-vacancy data show shortages of mid-to-high level ICT, engineering and data skills in countries like Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. World Bank+1
Importance of Digital Skills for Development – Structuring the technical and higher education, bedrock of durable breeding ground for innovation
The history and development trajectories of several nations have demonstrated that education is one of the drivers of productivity that make economies more innovative and competitive, particularly higher education.
Singapore’s extraordinary transformation into a wealthy and smart city-state in 60 years despite the inexistence of natural resources in their subsoil. The country has today a world-class education system at all levels, including high-performing universities and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions. To reach its spectacular development, Singapore has invested in the development of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the past 20 years. Finland equally successfully transformed itself from an agriculture-based economy in the 1950s into a leading innovation-driven, knowledge-based economy and high-tech producer within a relatively short span, due to its heavy investment in technologies, which led to the rise of Nokia, at the forefront of this development. This transformation owed to skills development and training, domestic technology and production capabilities, funding collaborative research involving private enterprises, public agencies, and universities.
To achieve its impressive transformation from an agrarian to a manufacturing-based, knowledge-intensive economy of per capita GDP of US$100,000 (2021), Ireland successfully implemented several strategies, attracting investments, supporting start-ups and entrepreneurship ecosystems. But substantially, Ireland significantly developed its human capital, upgrading its workforce by improving the quality of education at all levels. Primary and secondary education curriculum were reformed, strengthening teacher training, and increasing access to higher education, particularly in STEM.
As demonstrated by the examples of Singapore, Finland and Ireland, that have made the transition to becoming knowledge economies, they share core strategic elements: their prominent and continuous investment in education, research, technology, and innovation.
The Digital transformation opportunities are real in Africa. It holds significant potential for modernizing and resolving challenges in many sectors in Africa such as Agriculture, Health, education, energy, transportation and mitigating climate change.
IIDiA’s work in reducing the digital divide
At the Institute for Inclusive Digital Africa (IIDiA), we are on a mission of reducing the digital and financial inclusion divide in Africa.
IIDiA’s work spans the strategic pillars of digital transformation—from infrastructure and skills to entrepreneurship and digital finance—always with a focus on inclusion and equity. The Institute is specifically addressing the digital divide across the digital transformation pillars:
- Digital Infrastructure & Digital Public Platform
IIDiA contributes to expanding access to core digital infrastructure that underpins inclusive digital economies:
- Works with governments and partners to expand affordable digital public infrastructure (DPI).
- Through technical assistance and ecosystem engagement, IIDiA contributes expertise on infrastructure deployment strategies that reach underserved populations. (Iidia)
IIDiA has been working with the government of Gambia, the Gambia Central Bank and other stakeholders since 2024 to increase digital & financial inclusion in Gambia. The partners work hard to deploy BANTABA 2.0, the new Gambia Interoperability (GIPS) that will open the national switch to all financial institutions and fintechs, which went live on the 15 December 2025.
- Digital Entrepreneurship (Innovation Labs)
IIDiA actively builds local innovation capacity and nurtures tech ecosystems:
One of its flagship initiatives is the Regional Innovation Lab in Cotonou (Benin), launched with the Benin government’s digital agency (ASIN) and supported by the Gates Foundation. (LinkedIn)
The lab is currently developing a local-language AI voice model for Fon, enabling millions of residents to interact with digital services in their own language—a direct step toward inclusive digital service design. (Financial Afrik). The lab serves the ambition to build scalable, user-centred digital solutions, with future applications extending to sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education, and public service delivery in local languages. (iAfrica.com)
- Digital Finance
IIDiA plays an active role in strengthening digital financial ecosystems with a focus on inclusion and safety:
- Fraud & Trust Infrastructure: IIDiA in its effort to secure the digital ecosystems, partnered with Tazama, a real-time fraud monitoring system, to support the rollout of fraud detection tools that enhance trust in digital financial services across Africa. Work is currently underway for the deployments in Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone (Iidia)
- Financial Literacy & Agents: Examples of these programs are deployed in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, ..etc and focus on capacity building using technology to train beneficiaries, and agents to navigate digital payments and build confidence in these new tools. (Iidia)
- Digital Skills
IIDiA invests in capacity building and skills development to ensure individuals and organizations can participate in the digital economy by working hands on hands with all organisations involved in its projects. It advocates for workforce readiness in AI and emerging technologies as part of closing the digital divide and preparing youth for future jobs. (Iidia)
A Marshall Plan for Skills and Higher Education in Africa
Several reports from the IFC/World Bank, SAP & Mastercard, WEF, …etc are estimating the number of tech, digital and transversal skills (socio-emotional) needed to propel the development of the African continent to several hundreds of millions. However, the continent is currently ill-equipped with the infrastructure and quality necessary to deliver this level of output.
To face all the above constraints and convert its youth demographic into a competitive and economic advantage, the continent and each country – despite all the current initiatives – need a coordinated approach that implements two types of actions: the short term initiatives that provide quick wins and the long term ones that consolidate policies & infrastructure.
Short-Term Initiatives (Quick Wins)
- Call for Service to the diaspora
The 70,000 professionals Africans that leave the continent every year are a solid support for its development. The African Union has recognized the African Diaspora as the continent’s sixth region and has tasked the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) with finding ways to encourage diaspora members to contribute to scaling up innovative digital technology programs. This offers an opportunity to individual countries to create a robust institutional framework that sets the foundation to an organized contribution of the diaspora. The framework should be flexible enough to cover many options and adjust to possible personal circumstances including, investment, consulting, remote, temporary and relocation. The members of the African diaspora are eager to elevate their contributions beyond the US$100 billion annual remittance sent to Africa. There are several examples of diaspora contribution in the world and in Africa. The Nigerian Medics2You network, connecting Nigerians back home to the 18,000 Nigerian medical doctors in the UK for video consultations. Several initiatives by governments, creating online platforms to identify and record their diaspora exist. At individual levels, there are examples such as the Nigerian-born entrepreneur Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, who launched Andela, Africa’s largest engineering organization, employing over 1,000 software engineers and Mr. Aboyeji co-founder and lead of Flutterwave, US fintech and payment infrastructure company.
- Centralised refresher and digital capability updating for all public service personnel
- Conversion of all technical, Professional & vocational qualifications to respect ALL Global Standards & Framework for legitimacy, ease of communication, and ease of conversion.
- Recognition & elevation of English as a key language, for education in the Francophone countries, design policies and allocate resources for decent command by the end of secondary school. This could mean introduction at primary, compulsory with minimum required hours through Uni.
- Generalise Apprenticeship in all vital sectors with funding from gov & private sector.
- Multiplication of digital innovation labs & incubators
Medium to Long-Term Initiatives
- Multiply professional & vocational secondary level schools and specialised universities
- Installation of Specialised Excellence Poles in current Universities to accelerate changes.
- Immediate complete overhaul of the University system.
A massive and focused effort to completely shift the paradigm of higher education in Africa is critical for the survival of the continent itself. This ultimate action is easier to implement when all the others listed above are put in motion as this requires a medium to long term effort.
At IIDiA, in line with our call for partnerships to bridge the digital divide in Africa, we will continue working with likeminded governments, central banks and funding partners to reinforce and expand digital infrastructure (our work on payment systems and digital strategies), promote digital education and skills (our network of digital innovation labs, and tech university) and financial inclusion.
Gontrand NOUNAGNON – Digital Transformation Lead
