In a statement, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), stated that the bank's goal is to create 25 million new employment by 2025.
This was stated by Adesina during a lecture titled "Social Media, National Security, and Social Change: Bridging the Gap for Development in Africa" which was held in Lagos, Nigeria.
Nigeria has huge potential to attract global digital commerce and financial services, according to a statement released by Adesina on Friday in Abuja.
As part of its efforts to overhaul the backbone of Africa's technology revolution, Adesina stated that the bank was also investing extensively in high-quality infrastructure.
For Nigeria, the African Development Bank is preparing investments in the country's Digital and Creative Enterprises (i-DICE), a 500 million dollar investment program that will be co-financed with a number of partners.
In the fields of digital technology and creative spaces, i-Dice will foster entrepreneurship and innovation. It would contribute to the creation of long-term jobs and the transformation of Nigeria into a worldwide powerhouse in these areas.
According to him, "This program would stimulate innovation, particularly in the tech-enabled business and e-commerce space, where new and profitable businesses are being inaugurated in Nigeria."
The president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) stated that Nigeria has the potential to be a vital role in the development of Africa's technological industries.
Young African entrepreneurs are already attracting millions of dollars in venture capital for their businesses.
The firms Expensya, Gro Intelligence, Tyme Bank, and Flutterwave, just to mention a few, are on their path to becoming billion-dollar enterprises.
"Today, Yabacon Valley has emerged as one of Africa's premier technology clusters, with between 400 and 700 active start-ups valued at more than two billion dollars, second only to Cape Town in terms of total value.
"Andela, a global technological start-up situated in Yabacon Valley, just received a 24 million-dollar investment from Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg," according to the article.
"Nigeria is already home to three unicorns — technology and technology-enabling enterprises with market capitalizations exceeding one billion dollars – in the form of Paystack, Flutterwave, and Interswitch. "
According to Adesina, "the 200 million dollars investment by Stripe (a Silicon Valley firm) in the local payments company Paystack, and the 400 million dollars investment by three Fintech companies in just one week in 2019 demonstrate the enormous potential that Nigeria has for attracting global digital commerce and financial services."
While emphasizing the importance of providing every Nigerian with dependable and inexpensive internet connection, Adesina asserted that such access will help to increase digital financial inclusion. (NAN)