The government or Ghana has received a $3.8 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, which will be put towards creating an ICT Park in the capital city of Accra. With the development of the ICT park, the government aims to attract more ICT companies to Ghana – which will in turn create more employment opportunities for Ghanaian youths.
“As the Rockefeller Foundation enters its second year of our $100m Digital Jobs Africa initiative, we applaud the commitment of the Ghanaian government for steering the hiring at this new state of the art ICT Park towards poor and vulnerable youth – which will help to achieve our ultimate goal of impacting the lives of 1 million people through digital jobs for disadvantaged youth,” said Mamadou Biteye, Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation Africa Regional Office.
He added that an entire nation will benefit from the development. “This project will transform the landscape of Ghana’s IT /ITES sector while ensuring that disadvantaged youth are the ultimate beneficiaries. When young people are empowered economically, the entire nation will benefit.”
It is expected that the ICT Park will be completed by August this year, and the government hopes that it will in return create 10 000 employment opportunities.
According to news sources, “the grant follows on from the Foundation’s 2012 support to the Ghana ITES Secretariat, a World Bank seeded implementing agency under the Ministry of Communication, to train and employ 150 youth to digitize government records. In September 2013, the World Bank approved the $97 million eTransform project which builds on the earlier eGhana project.”
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
