…e-Governance: NITDA, MainOne, KOICA co-create for Nigeria’s Human Capital Development
By Hillary Asemota
Gartner, a renown global Information Technology (IT) research and advisory outfit, has said global spending on IT would reach $3.9 trillion by the end of 2021.
According to the company, headwind occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic will continues to act as a catalyst for digital transformation in almost every major industry.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), MainOne, the South Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and other stakeholders are collaborating for the capital development of the Federal Public Institutions and civil servants across MDAs without which the journey to Nigeria’s e-governance may take a long.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Ibrahim Pantami, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Bitrus Nabasu at the hang out of the Digital Transformation Technical Working Groups (DTTWGs), hosted by NITDA, said at the centre of e-governance is human capital development.
He said digital transformation in the public service is a key part of the nation’s strategy for developing indigenous digital economy, as it would fundamentally transform the way the public sector operates, creates value, and delivers services to customers.
According to him, it is a deliberate effort to improve business processes through the integration of digital technologies and this is gaining wide acceptance around the world, he added.
He said: “A 2020 report by Deloitte indicates that digital transformation can help accelerate progress towards enterprise goals such as financial returns, workforce diversity, and environmental targets by 22%.
The World Economic Forum (WEF), underscores in its report that digital transformation across the globe can lead to benefits in the region of $100 trillion between now and 2025.
On the one hand, the innovative use of digital technologies through empowered human capital makes the difference between the digital economy haves and have-nots.
Collaboration and co-creation between the government and the technology industry players is a critical determinant of a digital nation.
Pantami, said these two requirements served as the motive for conceiving the concept of establishing Digital Transformation Technical Working Groups (DTTWGs) in the FPIs, explaining that the first batch of DTTWGs was inaugurated in August 2020.
He said the scope of DTTGWs which is being driven by NITDA is to govern the implementation of IT and digital economy-related projects in the government.
He said: “The members of DTTWG are the e-Government Champions and the critical governance structure for implementing the Nigeria e-Government Master Plan (NeGMP) and National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) in the public sector.
“The DT-TWG is a critical instrument for the implementation of all pillars of NDEPS. For instance, on developmental Regulation, DT-TWG will be required to ensure all ICT and digital technologies-related policies and regulations are adhered to by their organizations in a manner that enables national development.
“Service and Soft Infrastructure are critical to achieving appropriate Government Digital Services (GDS) deployment and strengthening public confidence in the use of digital technologies and services. DT-TWGs are expected to support the Federal Government in developing citizen-friendly digital mechanisms to support service innovations and digital transformation for a Digital Nigeria. 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 President Muhammadu Buhari, which is also in line with the NDEPS pillar on indigenous content development and adoption.”
Pantami, said government had directed NITDA to keep strengthening the initiatives we started on e-Government implementation when I was the Director-General of NITDA and also come up with more initiatives that would accelerate digital transformation in the public sector.
“IT clearance policy drive: this has saved the Federal Government of Nigeria billions on Naira which would have gone into failed projects;
“Capacity Building for CEOs: This was targeted at creating awareness on the importance of digitization in meeting the FPIs’ mandates;
“Indigenous IT Companies Registration: This is to ensure we have capable service providers for public sector IT projects;
Nigeria e-Government Interoperability Framework (Ne-GIF): Provides the framework for seamless sharing IT infrastructure, processes, and exchange of information across FPIs;
Nigeria Government Enterprise Architecture (NGEA): Provides an overarching framework and standards for IT deployment in the public sector;
Cloud Computing Policy and Strategy: Provides policy directives to accelerate cloud adoption in the public sector;
MDAs’ IT Systems, Digital Services and Capability Assessment: This is to ensure there is data on the status of IT systems in the MDAs;
He commended the DG of NITDA, Mallam Inuwa Abdullahi, along with the Staff of the agency for continuing the reforms that we started and sponsoring new and creative ideas.
All these initiatives, if properly implemented, will progressively build an enabling environment and foundation for digital transformation in the FPIs, he said.
Government, he said needs the involvement of the technology ecosystem to co-create ideas and innovate, adding that the establishment of a digitization hangout is a platform for continuous engagement between DTTWGs and the technology ecosystem players.
Digital transformation, according to him, calls for a rethink in how public institutions do business and deliver public value and experience to customers. Public institutions should be looking for innovative ways to leverage digital to deliver value better than ever before. Doing this requires both the government and the private sector capabilities to create and deliver the expected value to citizens.
KOICA’s Country Director in Nigeria, Mr. Woochan Chang, who was represented by Mr. Kayode Adebisi, in a remark, said the collaboration with the Ministry is a follow up to the first phase and for specific focus as DTTWG member, KOICA Will be building capacity for federal government staff, adding: “We are starting first to get the survey and analyse it to know what the skills gap and based on that we build a training curriculum and deliver it to members and basically that will digital economy.
On collaboration with government for digital advancement, the CEO of MainOne, Ms. Funke Opeke, added: “Our focus is on bringing all of our data as Nigerians because everybody say data is the new oil.
“Data is very valuable for marketing all kind of business development even the storage and processing of the data like we just talk about banks and service companies, engineering companies using data from the field to do analyses and make new developments.”
