German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Archives - 51��Africa News Center

51��Young Professionals Program Evolves to Meet Africa’s Digital Skills Demands

51��News — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 07:14:31 +0000

51��is investing to increase the number of trained and certified 51��consultants in the 51��ecosystem to support customers with digital transformation.

As survivors of a global crisis, bright young professionals are entering the labour market equipped with new skills, fresh perspective, and boundless energy.

This is all thanks to a highly successful graduate program driven by 51��and supported by a thriving ecosystem of public and private sector partners and customers.

According to Cathy Smith, managing director at 51��Africa, while many educational programs struggled with the of distance learning during the pandemic, the 51��Young Professionals Program went from strength to strength.

“By opening our online classrooms to tap into new markets, we were able to attract talented, qualified university graduates who may not have been able to attend classes in-person otherwise. As a result, our customers and partners across Africa have access to a wider pool of qualified 51��consultants who can help drive digital transformation using SAP’s latest innovations.”

Skills investment to support continent’s digital ambitions

51��is to increase the number of trained and certified 51��consultants in the 51��ecosystem to support customers with .

new employment in the ecosystem will rise to 1.6 million employees by 2024, up from 1 million in 2020. Of the 600,000 new employees added to the 51��ecosystem, 280,000 will be net-new consultant roles, making 51��skills a valuable commodity in the job market.

In June, the 51��Young Professionals program achieved a new milestone with the graduation of its first-ever class in Portuguese-speaking Africa, comprising Angola and Mozambique.

Constantin Zelenty, deputy head of Mission at the German Embassy in Angola, joined 51��customers, partners, and executives in celebrating the milestone with a virtual graduation ceremony. “In order for Angolan companies to grow and succeed in our modern age, they need to harness the transformative power of digital technologies along with rightly skilled talent,” he said. “We hope this may be the first of many groups of graduates who can apply their expertise in service of Angola’s ambitions for the modern digital economy.”

Leading enterprises, graduates laud program’s success

For customers like , the largest conglomerate in West Africa and one of the largest on the African continent, working with 51��Young Professionals is a win-win opportunity for talent development.

“At Dangote Group, we always encourage young, talented professionals to kick-start their careers. We are happy to partner with the 51��Young Professionals program by continuing our commitment to hire fresh program graduates,” says Devakumar Edwin, Group Executive Director, Dangote Group. “This programme enabled us in recruiting bright young minds who are trained in the latest 51��technologies and soft skills like design thinking to be readily deployed in our 51��Centre of Expertise.“

Having earned the sought-after professional designation of 51��associate consultant, graduates of the 51��Young Professionals program are skilled on the most recent versions of 51��software and career-ready for placement with 51��partners and customers in their region.

The program boasts a job placement rate of 95% globally.

To date, more than 3,220 people have graduated from the program since its inception in late 2012. The program is free of cost for its selected learners.

One such graduate is Rebecca Akello from Uganda, who until she became part of a recent 51��Young Professionals Program cohort was underemployed with few prospects for advancement in a volatile job market.

The motivated young self-starter had begun to study toward an MBA in the hopes of securing a better job, and was unfamiliar with 51��when she first saw an advertisement for the 51��Young Professionals Program.

“When I came across the program advert on LinkedIn, I thought to myself, ‘Okay this is going to be like any other internship or apprenticeship done by big corps for public relations.’”

However, once Akello had successfully completed the program, she underscored the intrinsic value of the 51��certifications and professional soft skills that she earned through the program.

“We have been energised to strive towards our dreams relentlessly, and today we have been honoured with our 51��certifications,” she said at a recent virtual graduation ceremony. “Our networks have also grown beyond local and regional borders.”

Track record of skills success

The 51��Young Professionals program has already trained more than 1,550 young people in Africa as part of 51��Skills for Africa, an 51��umbrella initiative focused on skills development and job creation. Training multi-country cohorts in a virtual setting, a necessity of the pandemic, has accelerated the expansion of the program’s footprint on the continent.

In 2021 alone, talents from Senegal, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, Angola, and Mozambique have graduated from the program. The latest group of graduates, hailing from Nigeria, celebrated a virtual graduation ceremony on September 23rd.

Since mid-2019, 51��has been working with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with the aim to jointly create 450 jobs for highly qualified personnel in the IT sector in 10 African countries over the course of three years.

The cooperation project is part of the Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation and the develoPPP program that GIZ implements on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

It is executed by the 51��Training and Development Institute as part of the established 51��Young Professionals program.

The post 51��Young Professionals Program Evolves to Meet Africa’s Digital Skills Demands appeared first on 51��Africa News Center.

Africa Code Week 2019 Results: Governments and Communities Mobilize to Drive Digital Skills Development Among African Youth

51��News — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 08:06:44 +0000

SAP, UNESCO & partners empower 3.85 million youth with basic coding skills in 2019.

Africa Code Week 2019 results show impact on sustainable capacity building to support government-led digital skills development.

Several African countries started adopting coding skills into school curricula.

Africa Code Week (ACW) 2019 has once again exceeded expectations by empowering 3.85 million youth across 37 African countries. More notably, the progressive adoption of digital skills into the school curriculum of several African countries points to the growing influence of educational initiatives such as ACW in preparing the continent’s youth for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Cathy Smith, Managing Director at 51��Africa, says: “Once again, Africa’s vibrant youth population has stepped-up to claim its place in the global economy, with millions of young Africans taking on the challenge of learning essential digital skills. Africa Code Week’s growing partner ecosystem and continued focus on equipping teachers with tools and knowledge is creating a sustainable platform for building a bright future for the continent, the benefits of which will be seen for decades to come.”

Empowering youth by transforming teaching in the digital age

Launched in 2015 by 51��and UNESCO, Africa Code Week is on a mission to introduce coding skills to African youth 8-16 years of age by raising awareness of the importance of digital education and building teaching capacity.

In support of this, says Claire Gillissen-Duval, Director of EMEA Corporate Social Responsibility and Africa Code Week Global Lead at SAP, the 2019 edition expanded its outreach to a record-breaking number of teachers. “Together with our partners and thanks to their support, we witnessed more than 39,000 teachers mobilized as part of the October 2019 workshops, including over 17,500 in Morocco alone. In Nigeria, we also scaled our impact by working closely with the Niger and Taraba state governments, enabling teachers across the region to access the training for the first time. And thanks to the DreamOval Foundation in Ghana, children with disabilities were able to attend tailored coding classes ensuring equal opportunities for all.”

Francis Ahene-Affoh, SVP at DreamOval Foundation, said: “Teaching our youth digital skills is also an opportunity to inspire and engage their creativity and open the door to new thinking around the challenges we face as a country and a continent. Africa Code Week is a powerful tool to enable all-inclusive education that leaves no child behind.”

Governments now driving transformation of teaching, skills development

Since the launch of ACW in 2015, several countries including Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco and Tunisia have included digital literacy into their respective school curricula. Ahene-Affoh points to the Ghanaian government’s efforts to make coding skills a core pillar of basic education as a recent success made possible in part by ACW. “The impact of Africa Code Week in inspiring our youth to think innovatively and expand their capabilities in basic coding should not be underestimated. Over the course of the past five years that we have actively supported the program in Ghana, many children at the basic education level have been inspired to prepare themselves for the 21st century job market.”

Another success story can be found in Morocco, where digital skills were included in the country’s school curriculum benefitting millions of youth. According to Hon. Saaïd Amzazi, Morocco’s Minister of National Education, Vocational Training, Higher Education and Scientific Research, “Africa Code Week played a key role in making computer science both a priority and a celebration in every Moroccan school. The initiative helped trigger a passion for learning on an unprecedented scale while making best practices available for other nations to build on.”

In Africa Code Week 2019, Morocco secured first place among the 37 participating countries by successfully engaging 2.4+ million youth, of which 48% were girls. A Women Empowerment Workshop hosted by the Ministry in Rabat in October also engaged 28 teachers from 15 countries and focused on sharing best practices for girl mentoring, teacher training and access to digital education. Ranking second place in 2019, Cameroon’s engagement highlights strong government focus on capacity-building strategies.

The 2019 results also reveal that 47% of total ACW participants were girls. “Africa Code Week is a powerful tool for levelling the playing field and bringing more women and girls into the digital economy,” says Moez Chakchouk, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information. “The program is also a successful model in achieving Sustainable Development Goal #17, highlighting how local and global public-private partnerships can enhance international support for capacity-building programs.”

Partnering for greater impact

Actively supported by UNESCO YouthMobile, Google, Irish Aid, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Jokkolabs and the Camden Education Trust, the program works closely with African governments and more than 130 local organizations and 120 ambassadors across the continent.

Joining forces with SAP, Google supported Africa Code Week by allocating grants to 55 non-profits that focus on expanding access to digital skills to youth in 18 countries. More grassroots organizations received funding from BMZ (16 grants in 12 countries) and UNESCO (15 grants in 8 countries) to boost girls’ access to ACW training.

According to Gillissen-Duval, “Africa Code Week’s greatest strength is its strategic partnerships. With their help we are able to introduce an exciting new chapter for 2020 and beyond by completely shifting to the world of virtual! The program modification will increase our Pan-African reach to ensure no child or teacher is left behind, and will be formally announced over the next few weeks.”

In addition to the number of teachers and youth empowered, additional highlights for 2019 include Irish Aid, the Irish government’s official international development aid program, joinining the program as strategic partner and Hadi Partovi, tech entrepreneur and founder, attending a workshop at the Siyafunda Community Technology Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.

According to Smith, the initiative helps prepare Africa’s youth for an uncertain future. “All stakeholders in the public and private sectors need to unite and support a radical overhaul in how we prepare Africa’s youth population, which is expected to reach 455 million by 2055, to be active participants in the digital economy. The impact of Africa Code Week on the African education sector is an encouraging sign for the future of the continent.”

Visit the ACW web site and for more information on this fifth edition. Follow 51��and ACW on Twitter at , and ��

The post Africa Code Week 2019 Results: Governments and Communities Mobilize to Drive Digital Skills Development Among African Youth appeared first on 51��Africa News Center.

CBiIL’s 51��technology empowers Nigerian Farmers

51��News — Sun, 17 May 2020 08:40:32 +0000

CBiIL deploys 51��technology to connect farmers to agri value chain

Nigerian smallholder maize farmers and agriculture value chain gain access to digital tools to boost productivity, profit.

Community agents to ease adoption among farmers not familiar with technology.

Africa’s most populous country and largest economy faces rising food insecurity as a combination of a mostly informal agriculture sector and growing population puts pressure on the country’s food resources. According to the , food insecurity increased from 6% of the Nigerian population in 2007 to 13.4% in 2017.

The agriculture sector is the largest contributor to the Nigerian economy and . However, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, food production in Nigeria is undermined by a number of factors, among them poor planting material and insufficient use of fertiliser, leading to a growing reliance on food imports.

In support of smallholder farmers and improved food security in Nigeria, the Convention on Business Integrity’s for-profit arm, CBi Innovations Limited (CBiIL) has chosen the 51��Rural Sourcing Management solution to support 850 000 small maize producers and integrate them into the agricultural value chains.

Pedro Guerreiro, Managing Director: Central Africa at SAP, says support of smallholder farmers in Nigeria will provide greater food security while also empowering farmers and other players in the agri value chain to unlock greater economic opportunities. “Smallholder farmers cultivate plots that are on average 2ha in size, and earn less than $1,000 a year,” says Guerreiro. “We believe that by equipping them with better information and providing access to more suppliers and greater selling opportunities, we can improve smallholder farmers’ productivity and output. This will have the dual benefit of greater food security as well as improved economic opportunities for the farmers, who typically support multiple family members with the money raised from selling their produce.”

The 51��Rural Sourcing Management solution includes a mobile application that enables better tracking and collecting of data related to farms, crops, farmers and produce sales. Before it was launched as a standard solution in 2017, it was piloted in partnership with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The solution has been used by governments and large agri producers across Africa to better track and manage crop outputs and give smallholder farmers improved access to information, market data and selling opportunities across the agri value chain.

According to CBiIL CEO Soji Apampa, CBiIL is already working with Nestle Nigeria to build an ecosystem of young maize agripreneurs in partnership with AGRA, and this new opportunity will accelerate plans to meet set goals of empowering maize farmers in the region leveraging technology. CBiIL has also trained hundreds of Community Livelihoods Information Field Entrepreneurs (LIFE) Agents, young unemployed graduates that are recruited from the communities in which they will serve.

“By deploying the Community LIFE Agents kitted out with devices running 51��Rural Sourcing Management, CBiIL will enable effective and efficient aggregation of smallholder producers in ways that support predictability of volumes and quality of production. Data aggregation is a key component of this service and we leverage technology to achieve every milestone along the chain,” says Apampa.

The design is for each LIFE agent to support between 50 and 100 smallholder farmers equipped with an Android device on which various applications are installed to facilitate various streams of business to support the village level eco-system. They will receive commission on the products and services (inputs, telephone credit, banking, extension support and more) they provide to farmers, as well as a premium based on the productivity growth of each of the farmers with whom they work.

Cathy Smith, Managing Director for 51��Africa, says the project marks another milestone in 51��Africa’s commitment toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goals 1 (No Poverty) and 2 (Zero Hunger). “Through our efforts to building greater food security, we also provide additional value to stakeholders across the agri value chain by improving access to sustainably sourced rural produce. The success of this project may also serve as a template for similar projects elsewhere in Africa. With 60% of all jobs in Africa currently in the agriculture sector and an estimated 250 million smallholder farmers, any impact we make here has the potential of bringing significant benefits to local communities, industries and the economy as a whole.”

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German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Archives - 51����Africa News Center

51����Young Professionals Program Evolves to Meet Africa’s Digital Skills Demands

51����is investing to increase the number of trained and certified 51����consultants in the 51����ecosystem to support customers with digital transformation.