Ensuring skills keep pace with transformation – the next step in Africa’s growth

Over the last few months we’ve seen digital transformation accelerate at a scale we’ve never experienced before, and this rapid rate of digitalization is unlikely to stop any time soon. As it is around the globe, organizations in Africa continue to try and adapt to this new realm dictated by uncertainty and disruption that has necessitated transformation for recovery. 

Last year, African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy Dr Abou-Zeid noted that the pandemic had not only highlighted the importance of digital inclusion in daily life, but that the new “normal” we found ourselves facing had rematerialized the urgency to accelerate digital transformation on the continent. Disruption has prompted governments, business, and academia to take steps to improve connectivity and infrastructure, promote digital services, and create enabling policy and regulations that will support the building of an African digital market and economy.

 However, there is one aspect of this unexpected need to enable transformation quickly that we could quickly lose sight of to our detriment and that is its impact on the work landscape and the domino effect it will have on Africa’s skills needs.

 According to the World Bank, the demand for digital skills in Africa will surge within the next decade as jobs that did not need digital skills before will begin to, and as career paths shift into roles that did not exist before accelerated digital transformation took place. In Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Mozambique alone we can expect around 57 million jobs to require digital skills by 2030. With the continent already facing a massive digital skills gap even before the need for large-scale transformation, the need to build such skills – and rapidly – has become urgent. 

Digital skills training must evolve

Training must change to match constantly evolving digital technologies as well as their understood use cases within Africa’s organizations – and the impact thereof on the needs and operations of the workplace.

Understanding how they need to change could rely on the insights gained from the relevant data on digital technologies’ use in the workplace and its effect on the workforce.

Empowering the wellspring that is the youth

Africa has one of the largest, and fastest growing, youth populations in the world. The Population Reference Bureau notes that by 2030 young Africans are expected to make up 42% of the world’s youth and account for 75% of those under the age of 35 on the continent itself.

This presents a unique opportunity for African nations to harness this massive resource to meet not only the digital skills demands of the continent, but to supply the relevant skills to the rest of the world opening up opportunities and the world for young Africans.

So, the question remains; how do we attract the youth into STEM and digital career paths to help fill the inevitably widening skills gap across the continent?

Well firstly, we need to ensure that students are exposed to STEM subjects and career paths at an early age, particularly in a way that is engaging and interesting. There also needs to be increased investment in the resources required for STEM subjects, alongside the development of inclusive and accessible programmes and competitions around digital technologies like AI to facilitate innovation and motivation.

Recognizing the need for accessible skills building programmes on the continent, Microsoft created programmes such as SkillsLab, aimed at developing digital skills, coding abilities, and workplace readiness of young graduates. Microsoft has also made other skills programmes available like MySkills4Afrika wherein Microsoft employees around the world volunteer their time and expertise to transfer those skills to the organizations who need support, Interns4Afrika where talented young talent is able to intern with Microsoft partner companies for six months to develop experience and real-world skills, as well as Microsoft’s Virtual Academy which offers students, graduates, and employees the ability to build their digital and soft skills with free business and IT training.

Lastly, there is a need for increased collaboration between academia and the public and private sector as private partners can more accurately convey the skills needed from the workforce, the public sector can create policy that will facilitate and incentivize skills development, while academic institutions can build a curriculum that supports this changing environment.

Skills needs are building to a critical mass

If I had to describe digital transformation’s relation to skills needs and development, I would compare it to ouroboros, the ancient circular symbol of a snake eating its own tail which is meant to depict infinity and unity. See, effective and wide-scale transformation requires an injection of the relevant digital skills, and digital skills development at such a large scale is largely unnecessary without the at-scale adoption of emerging technologies.

Essentially, one cannot truly exist without the other and they are both each other’s driving force. This is why we cannot continue to push for digital transformation without ensuring that the digital skills needed by such transformation is developed alongside it. Africa must prioritise building the skills that a digital economy will call for.