NITDA to Train 500 Federal Institutions’ Staff as Digital Economy Advocates

POLITICS DIGEST – The National Informational Technology Development Agency (NITDA) would soon embark on a massive training and capacity building for about 500 members of the Digital Transformation Technical Working Groups (DT-TWGs), as advocates for Nigeria’s Digital Economy plan.

The exercise, which is billed to commence on September 21, will be conducted at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN), in Abuja.

The 500 trainees, according to Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the Director General (DG) of the Agency, will be drawn from selected Federal Public Institutions (FPIs).

“The aim is to empower them to be able to discharge their responsibilities efficiently. It is going to be a customised training to aid them accelerate and lead their organisations’ digital transformation,” he said.

Mal. Abdullahi, spoke on Thursday, during the inauguration of DT-TWGs and also the launching of G2G Portal–www.ngea.gov.ng, which recognized top performing institutions in the IT assessment of 100 FPIs.

“Today, we have taken a step to establish DT-TWGs across 129 Federal Public Institutions (FPIs). Among their responsibilities is playing the role of advocates for the digital economy and digital transformation-related activities. They will also be performing other functions that may be assigned by the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and in line with the provision of NITDA Act, 2007,” he said.

Inuwa Abdullahi, said NITDA developed Nigeria e-Government Interoperability Framework (Ne-GIF) and Nigeria Government Enterprise Architecture (NGEA) to ensure FPIs are properly guided and protected against pitfalls while implementing digital initiatives, among others.

He explained that these documents form the foundation for taking government-wide IT deployment from silo-based to an integrated whole-of-government approach and ultimately an asset for digital government transformation.

The NITDA boss, further noted that Digital Transformation calls for a rethink in the way public institutions do business, and also deliver public value and experience to customers.

Chief Host of the event, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, who is the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, said DT-TWGs are required to give preference to indigenous digital solutions while making IT decisions in their respective organisations in line with Executive Orders 003 and 005 of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR and in support of indigenous content promotion.

He added that Digital economy requires among other things adaptive policies, strategies, regulations, standardized infrastructure, globally competitive workforce, carefully orchestrated and coordinated digital governance structure.

“Without appropriate digital governance, it becomes difficult for digital investments and implementation to meet strategic objectives and expectations,” Dr. Pantami said.