Digital skills in Africa

The European Union’s (EU) Comprehensive Strategy with Africa, adopted in 2020, prioritises digital skills in three of its five thematic areas. Besides the EU, other key stakeholders, including the World Bank and United Nations (UN), have also expressed interest in and initiated programmes to support digital skills in Africa. Despite these formal declarations, we argue in this chapter that the conditions do not yet exist for a meaningful cooperation between the EU and Africa in this area. This is due to (1) lack of conceptual clarity and agreed consensus on what is meant by digital skills; (2) the need to develop the ecosystem for digital skills training, including provision of digital devices, connectivity, and appropriate digital contents in education establishments; and (3) the need to teach digital skills along with other cognitive, social, and emotional skills in education and training programmes (formal and non-formal). Nonetheless, in light of the progressive penetration of digital technologies, the projected demand for digital skills could act as an enabler to drive EU–Africa collaboration in this area. This collaboration could be focused on developing policy frameworks for digital skills, investing in the digital skills ecosystem, and prioritising broad-based digital skills training to drive productivity improvements and job creation.