TheCable

The African Development Bank (AfDB) says it has trained 130,000 youths through its coding for employment digital skills programme.

AfDB announced the milestone in celebration of this year’s International Youth Day (IYD) themed “Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health”.

The coding for employment was launched in December 2019 in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation and Microsoft.

In a statement by the multilateral finance institution, the milestone comes as the programme works to equip African youths with information and communication technology, entrepreneurship, and soft-skills training to compete in a digital economy.

“With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in lockdowns and school closures across the continent, the Coding for Employment platforms experienced dramatic increases in the number of users,” the statement reads.

“During a one-week period in September 2020, registrations skyrocketed by 38.5%.

“Through the Bank’s partnership with the Government of Nigeria to launch the Digital Nigeria eLearning platform during the pandemic, Coding for Employment has hit a combined total of 130,000 students.”

According to the bank, students who took the online courses in the wake of the pandemic in Africa said learning or honing digital skills helped them advance their careers.

It said the online training program started in tandem with the opening of physical coding for employment “centres of excellence” piloted in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

The Bank added that the online courses are now available in 45 countries, while it aims to scale up to 130 physical centres across Africa in the next 10 years.

Hendrina Chalwe Doroba, AfDB’s division manager for education and skills development, said: “The pandemic accelerated the adoption of online learning as a necessity.

“Coding for Employment swiftly leveraged its online digital skills platform to continue to offer a gateway for African youth to become more digitally capable”.

Martha Phiri, AfDB’s director of human capital, youth and skills development department, added that: “To win the battle against poverty in Africa, we must equip our youth with digital skills that empower them for the jobs of the future”.

The coding for employment program is part of AfDB’s jobs for youth in Africa initiative, and it aims to create over 9 million jobs and reach 32 million youth and women across Africa.