UK’s Prosperity Fund, Tech4dev sign agreement for digital literacy in Nigeria
Aderemi Ojekunle is a Businessamlive Reporter.
you can contact hin on aderemi.ojekunle@businessamlive.com with stories and commentary.
The UK government has through its Prosperity Fund Digital Access Programme (PFDAP) signed a resilience training agreement with Tech4dev, a non-profit technology for social development organisation, to deepen digital literacy skills in underserved communities in northern Nigeria.
The UK agency said that it signed the agreement with Tech4dev on the 5th of October, noting that the training is aimed at benefiting women, girls, people living with disabilities and other disadvantaged people in 10 rural clusters across 10 states in Nigeria.
“The UK has signed an agreement with Tech4dev to train 1000 Nigerians who had little or no prior digital knowledge for 12 weeks, on ways to navigate today’s digital world and spark their interest in gaining advanced digital skills or even pursue a career in technology,” an official statement on the UK in Nigeria official twitter handle read.
“ The agreement was signed on the 5th of October 2020 and is designed to directly benefit 10 rural clusters, across 10 states in Nigeria; targeting women and girls; People Living with Disabilities; and other vulnerable groups,” the statement continued.
Reacting to the development, Ben Llewellyn-Jones, UK deputy high commissioner in Lagos, said, “Brilliant that the UK can help the most disadvantaged with digital literacy so they can access the knowledge economy in Nigeria and become better able to work and communicate given the challenges (that) COVID-19 poses (in) Nigeria and globally.”
Tech4Dev, commenting on the agreement said, “We are super excited about this collaboration with UK in Nigeria and the opportunity to deepen digital literacy through Basic Digital Skills in underserved communities in Northern Nigeria.” Meanwhile, it appears like Tech4Dev has already decided on the 10 states that it will be covering under the training facilitated by the UK government.
In a post on its official twitter handle, the non-profit organisation sent out a call for applications for facilitators for a digital skills training. Noteworthy is the fact that the flier advises applicants to be residents in Benue, Jigawa, Kano, Kaduna, Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau and Sokoto. These look set to be the locations of the training programme.