The Ghana Digital Centre Limited (GDCL) has entered into agreement with the Diaspora African Forum (DAF) to offer technical skill development and capacity-building programmes for the youth.
DAF is a non-governmental organisation that specialises in diaspora advocacy at the highest levels of governance in Africa.
The partnership comes at a time GDCL was intensifying collaboration with key stakeholders to identify and create opportunities to accelerate growth of the country’s ICT sector for job creation and skills development in line with the Sustainable Development Goals Eight and Four which centre on decent work, economic growth and quality education.
Under the agreement, the youth would also be equipped with relevant skills in call centre operations, while certified trainees would be assisted with job placements to contribute to national development.
Consequently, a fully functional multi-channel communication call centre that utilises enterprise level state of the art technology would be set up at the Accra Digital Centre for training purposes.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GDCL, Kwadwo Baah Agyemang, signed for his outfit, while the Head of Mission of DAF, Dr Erieka Bennett, appended her signature for the organisation in Accra yesterday.
Mr Agyemang said that the country remained an attractive destination for business process outsourcing (BPO) activities due to its youthful population and favourable time zone.
“We want to build an eco-system for empowering digital startups; this we believe would help bridge the unemployment gap in our system,” he said.
The CEO added that the company's partnership with DAF will further unlock the country's potential in the information technology sector to create opportunities for digital jobs and skills development for the youth.
For her part, Dr Bennett expressed appreciation for the partnership, saying, “I truly believe this is an opportunity for Ghana to become the Silicon Valley of Africa”.
She gave assurance that the forum will do its best to ensure the success of the partnership with its resources and contacts.
GDCL is an agency of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation (MOCD) which was incorporated in July 2017, to lead the development of technology parks and digital centres across the country through the provision of the required infrastructure, facilities, environment, services and programmes that foster the growth of the ICT and IT-enabled business process outsourcing industry.