Ghana Launches National Digital Academy

Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA) in partnership with Ghana’s Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation has launched a national digital academy in the country, marking the official kick-off in-country implementation of the initiative.

As a pan-African dynamic learning ecosystem, SADA aims to improve digital skills qualifications, employability, and meet the emerging talent needs of African citizens. The launch in Ghana follows the rollout of national digital academies of SADA that took place in the Republic of Congo in February and in Rwanda in March.

According to a press release by SADA, such national digital academies will soon be rolled out in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As part of the next steps, SADA and the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation will continue to collaborate with the key stakeholders to successfully execute the defined priority initiatives under the SADA Ghana framework.

“These initiatives range from executive education in specialized topics to training of teachers and training of trainers in advanced computing. They will be implemented in collaboration with our development partners and private partners such as GIZ, World Bank, ITU, HPE, A4AI and more,” SADA says.

Commenting on the launch, Mr Lacina Koné, the Director-General and CEO of Smart Africa said: “Ghana is one of the most active countries of the Smart Africa alliance and has been instrumental in advancing digital skills of its citizens. We are pleased to contribute positively to the national capacity building through the launch of SADA in Ghana.”

“At the heart of the digital transformation lies the need to bridge the digital skills gap of our continent’s future and present workforce. I would like to thank all our partners and the Republic of Ghana for officially onboarding the SADA journey” he added.

Hon. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communications and Digitalisation said, “Today marks a proud moment for the people of Ghana and Africa at large in the area of digital skills and empowering African citizens in taking advantage of the digital transformation”

Since its start of operation in August 2020, focusing on the Capacity Building for Decision Makers (CBDM) module, SADA has trained over 2,000 policy and decision-makers across 26 countries in trending digital transformation topics including Artificial Intelligence Use Cases, 5G Connectivity, Data Protection & Privacy, Rural Broadband Policies, Security Technologies, Regulatory and Innovative Sandboxing Environments, Data Centers and Cloud, Digital Identity for Underserved, ePayment, etc.