Vodafone CEO calls for compulsory acquisition of digital skills among young people | Technology

In a COVID-19 pandemic where new inequalities have been created with rising youth unemployment widening the gap between rich and poor globally, Vodafone Ghana Executive Director Patricia Obo-Nai has reiterated the need for youth young people acquire digital skills.

Ms Obo-Nai, who described the acquisition of digital skills among young people as no longer an option, said that COVID-19 has presented a significant impetus for the economies of the African continent to create new opportunities to improve the digital skills of young people. young boys.

Speaking on the topic: Africa after COVID-19: Can the economy recover? At this year’s Bruegel Annual Meetings, Madam Obo-Nai explained that Vodafone has already been working closely with companies to ensure they have digital solutions in agriculture, particularly in South Africa, where Vodafone is digitizing the entire value chain. agricultural in that country.

In Ghana, he recounted how Vodafone supported many sectors, including healthcare, education and the mobile financial sectors during the pandemic.

In fact, when the pandemic began in March this year, Vodafone had drawn up a six-point plan to save citizens’ lives and deal with the health crisis.

To address the challenge, Vodafone increased its capacity to roughly 60 percent, as more government services, healthcare workers, and micro-businesses needed to connect with more people working from home.

Vodafone put devices in the hands of health workers where a telecentre with 50 multilingual people was made available to Ghanaian doctors to allow them to share information on their phones while helping citizens.

The company also made educational content available online on its Instance School Platform, which kept students informed about its lessons on the pandemic.

“Data has been very important in this pandemic and Vodafone has worked with the Ghana Statistical Service to help the population movement understand government policies in the pandemic. We help the government with aggregated and anonymized data from mobility information (modeling powered by AI) contact tracing applications in accordance with data protection policies, ”stated Madam Obo-Nai.

With regard to mobile money transactions and mobile financial services, Vodafone has worked with the central banks of the continent regarding financial inclusions and the conduct of cashless payments and the adjustment of fees and charges in the pandemic.

“We eliminate commissions from our transactions in many markets, including Ghana. We improved the level cap so that customers avoid face-to-face contact. Although we started with Safaricom in Kenya, we now have operations in around eight African markets with around 40 million customers and transact approximately US $ 14 billion in transactions every month, ”he said.

In donations and money in services around the world to support lives in this pandemic, Vodafone exceeds 100 million euros in money given to support the pandemic.

However, Ms Obo-Nai admitted that it is imperative for telcos to move towards remittances, digital wallets, business payments and deepening the use of mobile financial services digitally and enable businesses how to connect and how they get paid for very basic services.

“This is where young people come in, because as jobs become available in all these areas of the economy, we need young people with digital skills to take on the jobs,” he noted.

The meeting’s keynote speaker, former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from Liberia, explained that despite the progress made by many African countries in education, access to healthcare and technology, a bleak future still looms as the 75 % of the continent’s youth are not yet. in employment due to population growth, coupled with declining job opportunities.

World Bank Vice President for Africa Hafez Ghanem noted that the future is still bright for Africa. He said that the ratification of the ACFTA and that the continent is home to enormous natural resources, including a human population of 1.3 billion people, makes it a continent of opportunity.

The Bruegel Annual Meetings, which took place from September 1-3, 2020, discussed the most pressing economic issues facing Europe, Africa and the world.