South Africa takes the lead in the region when it comes to crucial aspects of the digital economy such as internet usage, mobile phone penetration, and broadband coverage. These factors play a vital role in supporting a robust digital economy. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in the country holds significant potential for generating jobs and ensuring job growth resilience.
In line with its development objectives, South Africa is leveraging the opportunities presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. An illustration of this is the recent creation of the National Digital and Future Skills Strategy (2021-2025) by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies. The success of these efforts hinges on the involvement of the country's most valuable resource – its young population.
However, despite having 20.5 million young people aged 15-34, a staggering number of over 8 million are currently not engaged in employment, education, or training (NEET). This concerning situation can be attributed to factors such as sluggish economic growth, a mismatch between skills and job requirements, and various inequalities arising from factors like gender, disability, and the historical legacy of racial discrimination. Consequently, a significant portion of South Africa's youth struggles with unemployment and inadequate income.
South Africa's digital skills development ecosystem and labor intermediation services are not yet fully equipped to address the demands of the digital era. There is a pressing need for comprehensive skills training and state-of-the-art services that can enable young individuals to access decent work opportunities and avenues for learning.
In South Africa, we launched a Skills Challenge Innovation Call to identify training providers that can deliver innovative solutions for skills development in the digital economy that address the needs of youth, and in particular youth NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), by providing them with pre-entry level digital skills that will increase their access to employment or further skills development opportunities. Under the topic “Boosting youth employability through digital skills”, the call encouraged training institutions in South Africa to send in proposals to help capacitate youth NEET through designing, proposing, and/or improving a curriculum. The prizes included financial and technical support for the institution, including a six-month programme by ITCILO to prototype and pilot their solution. This initiative was implemented in collaboration with South Africa’s Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT), and GIZ.
To find more information about our project in South Africa check out the country brochure!
