Digital learning enables Africa’s youth to reach their personal potential
BERLIN, Germany, 800,000 people in Africa reached with over 100,000 registered users; digital learning enables Africa’s youth to reach their personal potential.
atingi (www.atingi.org), the digital learning platform of The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has exceeded expectations in its first year. Within twelve months, atingi has reached almost a million people in Africa and already enabled 100,000 of them to access vocational education and self-development courses for free.
atingi means “to achieve” in Esperanto, and the platform strives to improve the employability of young people through modern digital learning opportunities. With a large network of strategic cooperation partners – from politics and business to science and civil society – educational content which meets the needs of African audiences is made available, free of charge, via the atingi platform.
Although atingi is developed for people in all German Development Cooperation partner countries, the current focus is specifically on facilitating African economic growth. BMZ has chosen four pilot countries for a more intensive engagement, recognizing that each is in a very different stage of digital transformation – and is therefore suited as a test case to identify opportunities for pan-African scaling. The close cooperation with the pilot countries Togo, Niger, Rwanda and Benin, enables atingi’s learning proposition to be dynamically evaluated, adapted and targeted to local needs.
atingi is an innovative digital pioneer focused on helping African’s unlock their potential
Africa is recognized as a potential global workforce hub for the rest of the world because of its high youth population. In fact, by 2030, Africa will be home to more than a quarter of the world’s population of under 25s, and 15% of the world’s working population. To date, the lack of access to high quality education for its working-age citizens has been a critical inhibitor of African countries ability to compete effectively in the international labour market. There is an urgent need, therefore, for the continent to expand its pool of highly-skilled employees through the development of relevant, vocational skill sets.
This is where the role of digital transformation becomes significant. Digital technologies open up new avenues for rapid economic growth, innovation, job creation and access to services that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. In this context, online learning and orientation opportunities are essential to enabling people in Africa to keep pace with the digital transformation beyond their borders. This not only ensures they are well qualified for the jobs of the future, it can also ensure a more integrated knowledge economy that moves Africa, and its citizens, closer to realizing their economic and personal potential.
Furthermore, it can often be challenging for local educational institutions to reach people in rural and sparsely populated areas in Africa’s emerging markets. The reality is that there is a high demand for learning opportunities and vocational skills, but there are often geographic and infrastructure barriers, which can be addressed through online learning offers. atingi enables users to access high-quality, locally-relevant, digital learning materials anytime and anywhere. Recognizing the barrier of internet connectivity, atingi also offers low-tech and offline solutions.
Partnering for growth
The atingi development cooperation framework builds on existing local and global partnerships. Alongside the four pilot countries, a growing network.
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