The Ministry of Communications and Digitisation and the Digital Transformation Centre (DTC) in Ghana have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support the digital innovation agenda of the Government.

The MOU commits the two entities to jointly implement projects and activities at the DTC to support the sustainable growth of the digital economy.

The DTC was built by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and forms part of a pan-African network of flagship projects that the German Government is building to support the transformation process in Africa.

The MoU would, therefore, guide the partnership between the two entities in helping Ghana to achieve an inclusive digital economy and society.

Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, the Minister of Communications and Digitisation, signed on behalf of the Ministry while Mr Daniel Krull, the German Ambassador, signed for the DTC.

The tenets of the collaboration focus on areas of capacity building and skills development as well as policy formulation and development, while the goal of the DTC is to improve the preconditions for using digital transformation for more employment and entrepreneurship, specifically for rural areas.

Mrs Ekuful described the German Government’s support to Ghana as welcoming, which would propel Government’s drive to leverage ICT as a tool for job creation.

The programme, among other things, would support 40 Community ICT Centres (CICs) established by the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) to develop and provide a broad range of services to rural communities.

It will renovate the CICs, equip them, and train the people to open up the local economy.

“Our aim is not to leave anyone behind but unfortunately we don’t have the CICs in every community and we are trying to do that. But GIFEC has zones around the countryside and so we are going to work in partnership with GIZ to develop the programme in such a way that as many people that are interested can also benefit from it,” Mrs Ekuful said.

The Minister said through the project some challenges identified within the tech system would be addressed to bridge the digital gap between the rural and urban areas, particularly in terms of infrastructure.

Both small cities and rural areas in every region where there is a Community ICT centre would benefit from the capacity building and skills development programme.

Mr Krull said his Government was happy to support Ghana to expand her digitisation drive as the country continued to leverage on it.

He said the project would, therefore, help strengthen the technical know-how on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and develop a policy framework for it.

The German Ambassador said there would also be support for young tech start-ups through access to finance and markets as well as capacity building through innovation hubs and accelerators.

Already, a first cohort of 50 young people have been enrolled onto the programme and being taken through various topics, including artificial intelligence.