How Digital Technologies Can Increase Job Opportunities, Reduce Poverty

It has been revealed how digital technologies can increase job opportunities, reduce poverty even as governments battle unsuccessfully to steady their economies.

The revelation is coming against the background of hundreds of thousands of the youths joining he unemployment market after graduating from school each year.

The figure is put at more than 22 million youths at the continental level, but from Nigeria to Ghana, Algeria to Madagascar, the malaise continues to drown economic efforts, in short country to country within Africa.

It is argued therefore that learning how digital technologies can increase job opportunities should be a priority concern of governments and institutions.

Digital technologies, from computers to apps to machine learning, offer new opportunities for people, businesses, and jobs, the World Bank says.

It says that internet availability increases jobs and reduce poverty in African countries, and that to fully realise their potential, digital technologies need to be made more affordable and easier to use.

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These and more are stated in one of its incisive report which also submits that the digital sector has become a driver of innovation, growth and job creation in Africa.

How digital technologies can increase job opportunities feature prominently in the study: Digital Sector: A Driver of Innovation, Growth, and Job Creation”.

Authored by Yan Liu and Henry Stemmler, a subset of a larger report, “From the Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023” .

Mentioning Nigeria as one of African countries that experienced fastest growth in employment due to burgeoning local IT services industry, it says the trend also saw Israel, Malaysia, the Philippines, Viet Nam, and several Central and Eastern European countries recording impressive IT exports.

“Similarly, Nigeria’s tech industry has been on the rise, with start-ups and tech hubs popping up across the country”, the report adds in perspective.

Also, a related submission, “Digital Africa, Technological Transformation for Jobs” x-rays the expanded use of affordable and attractive digital technologies (DTs) appropriate for Sub-Saharan Africa’s growing workforce.

Defining DTs to include digital and data infrastructure, broadband internet, smartphones, tablets, and computers, it links it with specialised productivity-enhancing solutions, such as management upgrading, worker training, procurement, marketing, logistics, financing, and insurance.

Underscoring the relative lack of DT use in Africa, with its direct and indirect impact on creation of job opportunities, one of the studies submitted that too few people benefit, as Africa’s internet infrastructure coverage and quality still lags other regions.

“While 84% of people on average across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa live in areas where 3G service is available, and 54% have some 4G mobile internet service, only 22% were using mobile internet services as of the end of 2021.

“Usage rates range from a low of 6% in South Sudan to 53% in South Africa, underscoring the heterogeneity of average use and the need for differentiated policy reforms across countries.

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“The key DT related issue for African enterprises is still low productive use. The main factors affecting enterprise use of smart phones and computers, and of more sophisticated DTs, are the lack of ability to pay for them and willingness to use them.

“For example, 1.5 GB of data over 30 days, a package that covers about a few hours of daily use, amounts to about one third of the income for the 40% of Africans who fall below the extreme poverty line”, it stated