​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ITU today launched the Digital Skills Assessment Guidebook​, a comprehensive and practical step-by-step tool for national digital skills assessments.

The Guidebook assists Member States to determine the existing national supply of digital skills, to assess skills demand from industry and other sectors to identify skills gaps, and to develop policies to address future digital skills requirements.

“COVID-19 has revealed startling digital divides between and among countries," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “Now more than ever, we need to work together across borders and sectors to ensure that people everywhere, including our youth, have the tools and skills they need to navigate and succeed in today's digital economy and society."

The Guidebook, which draws on and complements the ITU Digital Skills Toolkit published in 2018, is designed for use by policy-makers and other stakeholders, such as partners in the private sector, non-governmental organizations and academia, who may need to undertake skills assessments at the national level.

“As necessary digital skills continue to grow in number and complexity, countries are in need of well-structured approaches to identify current digital skills levels and manage future requirements," said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau. “Furthermore, COVID-19 has highlighted with more urgency the digital skills divide. The Guidebook will assist countries, especially in the developing world, to undertake national digital skills assessments to determine their current digital skills levels as well as their current and future digital skills requirements."

Digital skills are fast becoming essential for people to navigate ordinary day-to-day activities such as using a mobile phone to transfer money to family members via digital financial services, using the Internet for remote education and to research, prepare and deliver coursework, and acquiring basic skills for staying safe online. In the workplace, digital skills are required for an ever-growing number of jobs, and even in traditionally manual sectors like agriculture, digital applications are beginning to make inroads, with a corresponding requirement for some level of digital literacy.

The guidebook comprises the following five chapters:

• Chapter 1 reviews existing work on national digital skills assessments, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of digital skills assessment tools that can be employed as part of a national-level assessment.
• Chapter 2 provides a step-by-step approach for assessing the current supply of digital skills.
• Chapter 3 provides a step-by-step approach for determining a country's current level of demand for digital skills and identifying any skills mismatch.
• Chapter 4 addres​ses future technology trends and how to conduct digital skills anticipation exercises.
• Chapter 5 contains a summary and conclusions.
• In the Appendix, readers will find additional resources and tools which policy-makers and stakeholders can use in developing ideas suited to their specific country or context.