The United Kingdom (UK) Government has through the DigiGirls programme, in three iterations, funded CyberSafe Foundation to cumulatively provide employable digital skills to more than 65,000 women and girls across Nigeria, Techeconomy can report.
The UK Government’s investment in women in Nigeria has been described as the means to accelerating progress, considering that a recent USAID report indicates, 90% of jobs worldwide will have a digital component in the near future and without digital skills, women are automatically disadvantaged and do not have the confidence to participate in the digital workforce or the digital economy at large.
Speaking at International Women’s Day (IWD) Digihubs Awards held in Lagos on March 08, 2024, in Lagos, Jonny Baxter, British deputy high commissioner in Nigeria, pledged the commitment of the UK Government to close the digital divide in the country.
He said the Government has been a leading partner in working with the Nigerian people to close the digital gender divide in Nigeria.
Baxter said: “We have championed inclusion for women and girls into the digital economy through projects such as DigiGirls. This is because we know that the data says that inclusion leads to an increase in economic power.
“We know that women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate change, natural disasters and conflict because they exacerbate existing inequality and barriers in accessing services and support.
“Yet women are critical front-line responders when crisis hits and are crucial voices in decision making processes – if given the space to be heard”.
He noted that, the participation of civil society groups, including women’s organisations, makes a peace agreement of 64% less likely to fail, and “we know that the benefit of reducing conflict in other countries is felt in many other countries of the world.
“Gender inequality is particularly entrenched for women and girls who face multiple-discrimination, because of their age, religion, disability, sexuality, race or other difference,” he added.
Mr. Baxter while reflecting on the Digital Access Programme in Nigeria expressed the UK’s commitment to being a global science and technology partner, working with others to develop solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, including on digital skills.
He said the UK firmly believes in the future growth story of Nigeria’s digital sector. “To continue to drive this growth, Nigeria needs a combination of increased access to safe, affordable, faster and better-quality internet, an encouraging regulatory environment, a skilled talent pool, and access to investment and partnership opportunities.
“Our in-country digital strategy focuses on working with both the government and private sector to improve infrastructure, build cyber resilience, reduce barriers to digital innovation, drive the upskilling of a digital workforce and improve policy and regulatory frameworks.
“Through the Digital Access Programme, we work with the Federal Government, State governments and policy makers as well as the Private Sector on removing systemic barriers to connectivity expansion”.
One of such programmes is the DigiGirls programme where last year on International Women Day, the UK launched a 10-year Women and girls’ strategy which showcases its commitment to tackling gender inequality across the globe.
“The first two cohorts of the DigiGirls programme saw the training and upskilling of 6,800 women and girls. While that might look like a large number it was only 6.3% of the people that applied for the opportunity to be trained for free.
“For us, it felt like we needed to do more. We thought about how we could make this project reach more people and have a wider impact yet still be sustainable. We then decided to experiment with using local technology hubs to deliver upskilling to women and girls. This would strengthen the hubs as well as provide a physical space where women and girls could learn undisturbed.
“Our experiment paid off and in this present phase of the project Cybersafe was able to train 59,900 women and girls. We did this with support of 200 volunteer Alumni DigiGirls called DigiChampions and a partnership with 60 hubs across 22 states in Nigeria.
“We believe that this programme has helped in addressing the digital inequality in Nigeria – and we will continue to support programmes like this,” he stated.
On her part, Mrs. Confidence Staveley, founder and executive director of CyberSafe Foundation highlighted education as the true means to getting more women into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and a door to innovation.
In her words, “Inclusion of women will not happen by chance, it will take intentional, tailored and targeted investment in women to accelerate progress that we so desperately need”.
Continuing Mrs. Staveley said, “Investing in women also includes not just investing in implementing impactful progranms like DigiGirls. We need to mainstream solutions through the vehicle of policy. We must mainstream digital skills especially for women in our school curriculums, we must address discrimination and gender-bias practices in hiring processes…making them illegal.
“We must take a stand on educating men, our allies on what the challenges are and getting them on our side of this war against exclusion.
“The lack of women’s inclusion in technology comes at a massive cost. Infact, women’s exclusion from the digital worid has shaved US$1 trillion from the gross domestic product of low- and middle-income countries in the last decade – a loss that will grow to US$1.5 trillion by 2025 without action according to a 2022 Gender Snapshot report.
“But today, we celebrate the resilience of women like Azeez Omowunmi, a DigiGirl in our third cohort, who faced the classic challenge of electricity blackouts and economic constraints. These blackouts were standing in the way of her enjoying the free training we provided directly to over 60,000 women in this cohort. Azeez found a clever way to navigate these challenges. She made the tough decision to spend all her weekends sleeping over in church where she will have access to electricity to charge her computing device, consume our on-demand learning content and do her assessments throughout the programmme.
“We celebrate our Digichampions who in true spirit of generosity and service that Women are known for, they are ach after getting trained by us, training 100 women each in their local community…creating an organic ripple effect of digital skills transfer
“We celebrate the nursing mothers at our hubs and our excellent hub partner in Kaduna who brought their children to the Hub so their gift of motherhood does not deny them the digital skills required for today’s technology driven workplace”.
IWD Digihubs Awards
Five hubs were recognized at the auspicious event among 60 of the hub partners, spread across the geopolitical zones in Nigeria.
Award Categories:
1. Mission Champion Award (A.K.A Overall Best Hub)
Award Recipient: Development Hub, Borno – Abbas Baba
The award recognized Development Hub with the highest retention rate and a strong commitment to the sustainability of the digital skills training for women in the long term.
“The hub implemented effective methods for monitoring progress and evaluating the impact of the training and has the highest number of graduating fellows”, the Cybersafe Foundation ED said.
2. Impact Amplifier Award
Award Recipient: Guru Innovation Hub, Cross River – Oyo Effiom
This awards Guru Innovation Hub that demonstrated a strong commitment to the vision and enrolled the greatest number of fellows. The nominated hub exceeded the number of enrollments they initially pledged.
3. Inclusive Excellence Champion Award
Award Recipient: NHub Incubator, Plateau – Shamsiyah Bashir
The award recognized the hub that has created the most supportive and inclusive learning environment for the participants.
According to the organisers, this hub implemented innovative and effective training methods to enhance the learning experience for the beneficiaries.
4. Community Engagement and Outreach Award
Award Recipient: Dignity International Consults, Imo – Ihemegbulem Chukwuebuka Gerald
“The award recognizes the hub that excelled in community engagement and outreach, reaching, and positively impacting a broad audience.
“”The nominated hub did this by opening two hubs for the training to enable them to reach more people”, Mrs. Staveley said.
5. Outstanding Community Impact Award (A.K.A Grassroot Empowerer Award)
Award Recipient: Jbest ICT, Kaduna – Anna Tanko (Female Led Hub)
This awards a hub in an underprivileged or severely disadvantaged neighborhood that has showcased remarkable achievements in fostering positive change within their local community.
“Their exceptional problem-solving abilities have been instrumental in ensuring that their community participates in the training”, she explained at the DigiGirls programme.
