Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that investments in digital technology can make important contribution to growth and development by fostering productivity gains from continuous innovation.
Speaking at the Africa-Europe High-Level Forum in Vienna, Austria on Tuesday, 18 December 2018, which had in attendance other African and European Heads of States, Osinbajo called Africa and Europe to work together to advance and harvest the economic benefits of digital economy.
He noted that such collaboration will at the same time prevent a counter-productive widening of the digital gap.
Osinbajo who spoke on ‘Taking cooperation to the digital age’, noted that investments in digital technology could make important contribution to growth and development by fostering productivity gains from continuous innovation.
“Given our fast-growing population in Africa, we are, of course, keen to work together to boost the job creation potential of new technologies rather than concentrating on jobs destined to disappear in the digital age.”
“Faster growth, sustainable development and job creation are also vital for reducing irregular migration from Africa to Europe. In our globalized world, people can see disparities in standards of living across regions quite easily.”
“This means there must be increasing openings for entrepreneurship and jobs in home countries for those who would otherwise embark on risk journeys in search of opportunities. In Nigeria we are taking urgent and practical steps to provide such opportunities for our rapidly increasing youth population,” he said.
The report by the Nigerian Television Authority said that Osinbajo also highlighted the strides made by the Nigerian government in developing Nigeria’s technology sector through supporting public-private sector initiatives and the advisory group on technology and creativity.
He noted that the advisory group had been working to build an ecosystem for funding, training, infrastructure and intellectual property protection.
According to him, the country’s Social Investment Programme has been leveraging on technology tools to drive it in its bid to improve the economy and lives of Nigerians.
“Under our social investment programme, 75,000 young people are being trained in coding, software development, hardware maintenance, animation and data management, and we’re set to train another 200,000 young men and women.”
“Similarly, we have established eight technology hubs to support tech start-ups across our six geopolitical zones and two major cities of Abuja and Lagos,” he said.
“We’ve encouraged partnership to establish venture funds to support innovation and are now engaged in talks to establish a $500 million innovation funds with bilateral and multilateral partners.”
“We’ll be deploying digital methods and tools on a larger scale to expand learning opportunities for younger Nigerians, as conventional education through brick and mortar institution can no longer be viable given the huge numbers and limited resources.”
“Already, 200,000 out of our 500,000 young graduates in our N-Power scheme have tablet devices, which we use for on-the-job training and further skills acquisition. This experience will guide our efforts as we seek to expand digital literacy at earlier stages of education,” he added.
The meeting, which was organised by the European Union (EU) and African Union (AU) held in Vienna, Austria.
– APA
