UNCDF Partners With IBM on Digital Futures to Bridge the Digital Skills gap

As part of UNCDF’s Digital Futures project, the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) announced today that it is collaborating with IBM to bridge the digital skills gap by providing digital learning to children and women.

IBM’s SkillsBuild project, which provides digital and workforce skills training to students and job seekers, will aid in the implementation of Digital Futures.

In Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, the Digital Futures program will seek to provide advanced digital and 21st-century labor capabilities. Digital Futures is a project that aims to mobilize an international digital and workforce skills partnership ecosystem, which includes public and private sector organizations, educational institutions, and sponsors, to deliver digital skills training.

The project will focus on providing digital training to youth, women, and students in technical and vocational education and training (TVET), with a particular focus on LDCs (LDCs). 50,000 adolescents, women, and TVET students will be trained as part of Digital Futures.

“Scaling all impactful solutions, including solutions to improve digital literacy and strengthen skills building to ensure competitiveness in the global digital economy and in light of the 4th Industrial Revolution, is critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals agenda,” said UNCDF Executive Secretary Preeti Sinha. “Along with our primary commitment to help LDCs, our relationship with IBM will attempt to harness their experience in digital skills development. IBM and UNCDF will work together to ensure that no worker is left behind, particularly in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.”

IBM will promote Digital Futures through IBM SkillsBuild. IBM SkillsBuild is a free, digital training initiative for students, educators, and job seekers that provides access to learning courses, tools, and assistance intended at reskilling or upskilling learning on fundamental technology and workforce skills required to succeed in tomorrow’s jobs.

In 159 countries, IBM SkillsBuild provides over 1,000 courses in 19 languages in technical areas such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and data analysis, as well as workplace skills.

“We’re excited to partner with UNDCF on Digital Futures to help democratize opportunity and fill the growing digital skills gap,” said Justina Nixon-Saintil, Vice President, IBM Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG. “As part of IBM’s promise to fairly skill 30 million people worldwide by 2030, we look forward to collaborating with UNCDF to assist train adolescents and women in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific for in-demand technology employment in the market.”

With a pilot phase now underway in East and Southern Africa, the UNCDF will lead the implementation and execution of Digital Futures. Digital Futures will expand on the lessons learned from UNCDF’s current digital skills development program, which is being implemented in partnership with IBM and the Ethiopian Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT).

The International Telecommunication Union launched the Partner2Connect (P2C) Digital Coalition, which spawned the Digital Futures initiative (ITU). P2C is a multi-stakeholder alliance that aims to promote meaningful connectivity and digital transformation across the globe, with a focus on but not limited to the most difficult-to-connect communities in least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing states.

“I am pleased to see this commitment to Partner2Connect. “The Partner2Connect Coalition is a game-changing opportunity to take a holistic strategy, catalyze new collaborations, and mobilize the resources needed to connect those who are still offline,” said ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin. “I’m appealing to all stakeholders to help us connect the 2.9 billion people who are now without access to the internet.” I want to receive many more pledges in the near future so that we can actually “Partner2Connect the World.”

P2C’s objective to roll out advanced digital and workforce skills relevant to the digital economy and future of work will be anchored by Digital Futures. Digital Futures is one of three UNCDF-led programs that P2C is supporting.