Source · Select Committees · Foreign Affairs Committee
Recommendation 6
6
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As an emerging science and technology hub in Africa, Nigeria presents opportunities for the UK...
Recommendation
As an emerging science and technology hub in Africa, Nigeria presents opportunities for the UK Government to make progress toward its priority of securing strategic advantage through science and technology. Investment in businesses and capacity development in the IT sector also has the potential to bring benefits to the people of Nigeria in terms of employment and access to life-transforming technologies as well as improving the dynamism of the rest of the economy. To stimulate diaspora investment in Nigerian small and medium sized tech enterprises the UK Government needs to adopt an approach that builds capacity across the whole tech ecosystem. We recommend that the FCDO prioritise UK Government capacity building support to the Nigerian legal system and legal services for business in Nigeria. Such support will allow UK investors to capitalise on the similarities in corporate law between the two countries as well as de-risking investments.
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17
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
We partially agree with this recommendation. The FCDO agrees on the need to engage proactively in the digital and IT sector and space but would reflect that evidence does not support the need for ODA spend on skills capacity building programmes in that sector. In depth global FCDO research has found that narrowly focused skills programmes were not as cost effective (in terms of value for money) when compared with other potential ODA programme interventions. Our IT sector interventions have responded to this evidence and therefore now seek to foster innovation and create an enabling environment in which innovators can thrive. As well as the Digital Access Programme referred to in the report, the UK also has a Skills For Prosperity Programme (S4P) programme which works on technology skills. The design of the S4P programme - to work on skills where there are jobs demanding the skills, rather than assuming that provision of skills will create jobs where they did not already exist - reflects the review of our previous Apprenticeship and Community-Based Skills Training programme, MAFITA. The MAFITA programme was closed early as the cost per person was high relative to other programmes: it was found to cost about £920 to train a person, or £2,370 per job created in a Nigeria northern skills programme, whereas other programmes showed that they can create long term income routes for the poor for between £20 and £30 per person. The World Bank’s David McKenzie has extensively reviewed a suite of evidence on skills programmes and came to the same finding. Consequently, the S4P programme works with businesses to meet their existing, current demand and create sustainable models for funding IT training, for example through loans. Nigerian state governments such as Edo state are picking up this model and adopting it themselves through their own tech training hubs with potential employers – both onshore in Nigeria and offshore. In line with the IDS and as the FCDO plans future ODA spending, the UK Government would intend therefore to prioritise work on investment facilitation and proportionate regulation over support to narrowly focused skills programmes. The impact of arbitrary regulatory decisions and a lack of consultation are the main complaints from tech investors in Nigeria (rather than lack of skilled workers).