Huawei to train 1000 civil servants through ICT for Change programme

From left, Vice-President, Huawei Technologies, West Africa Region, Mr Frank Lee; Vice President, Huawei Technologies, Mr Xue Man; Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, and the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, after signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Huawei Technologies and the Federal Government of Nigeria, which took place at the office of the (SGN ) in Abuja last week.

Global Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Company, Huawei, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Government of Nigeria, to kick-start the second phase of the Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Change Programme which will see 1000 Federal Civil Servants get trained and empowered on capacity building.

The signing ceremony for the ICT for Change project, which took place at the Office of the Secretary General of the Federal Government, had the Secretary General of the Federal Government, Mr Boss Mustapha;Huawei Technologies Vice President, Mr Xue Man; Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita; Secretary of the State Secretarial Office, Mr Olusegun Adeyemi Adekunle,National Backbone Chief Executive Officer, Mr Yusuf Kazaure, President of Huawei Western African Region, and the General Manager, Managing Director of Huawei Nigeria, Mr Li Teng, sign the memorandum of understanding.

In an address, Vice President, Huawei Technologies,Xue Man, said: “According to a study from Huawei and Oxford economics, over the past three decades, every one USD invested in digital technologies has led to 20 USD rise in GPD. As a global leading ICT company, we are willing to work together with all stakeholders to bring digital to every person, every home and every organization in Nigeria“.

“The government sector is one of the industries most influenced by ICT technology. We hope that by working together with the federal government, the ICT for Change Initiative will help to equip civil servants with the necessary knowledge to face this great digital transformation. He added.”

In his remark, Secretary of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, stated that, “The ICT for Change Programme is in alignment with the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (2017-2020) to enhance the capacities and capabilities of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) performance and delivery systems. In this regard, the Programme supports in the area of automation of processes and bureaucratic procedures to make them more efficient by implementing an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution.”

On her part, Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, applauded the synergy between Huawei and the Federal Government, expressing optimism that the ICT training under the company’s CSR will go a long way to achieve the 2017-2020 civil service strategic reforms on capacity development and technological know-how. The first phase of the initiative saw2000 youth gettrained. In this second phase, 1000Nigerian Civil Servants will receive a One-week training starting from the end of this year.

Over the years, Huawei has been investing in ICT upskilling and capacity buildingin an effort to boost employment;development of knowledge-intensive products and services; and enhance the ICT skills of the future generations.

Other schemes implemented and supportedby the tech giant include Growing Girls and Women in Nigeria (G-Win), 1000 Girls in Training, scholarship for The African University of Science and Technology (AUST), engineers training programmes, and Seeds for the Future which is designed to bridge the gap between ICT instruction at universities and the practical knowledge and skills needed in the workplace.