The Federal Government has projected that at least 5 million jobs will be created by it through outsourcing between now and the year 2027.
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) made this projection in its just released National Outsourcing Strategy (NOS 2023-2027).
According to the agency, the goal of the NOS is to make offshore outsourcing a major contributor to Nigeria’s economy and that this goal will ensure that the country meets its intentions for a diversified economy that will ensure growth and prosperity for its citizens and businesses.
The NITDA stated that apart from the job creation target, the strategy was expected to increase the contribution of outsourcing to the country’s GDP by 25% by the year 2027 while the Federal Government was also aiming to acquire 30% of the global outsourcing industry by the same year and increase its IT-enabled outsourcing platforms by 70%.
Noting that Nigeria has huge potential to achieve these targets given its rapidly growing, techno-savvy youth population, the agency expatiated: “With the largest population in Africa and a median age of 19 years, Nigeria has a large youthful population. With high-capacity first-mile broadband infrastructure, the country has a tremendous opportunity to lift the standard of living of its citizens through the effective implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy by growing the IT Enabled Outsourcing services sector to serve both the Public and Private sector organizations, onshore and offshore.
“The rapid growth of the IT-enabled Outsourcing services sector will address various socio-economic challenges the country is facing. These include the need to grow its economy, create jobs, expand the tax base, improve technology transfer, and attract foreign direct investment”, it added.
The NITDA also pointed out that the Nigerian Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry had recorded significant growth in the past few year and now being dominated by Call Centre services operators providing services to both onshore (local) and offshore clients.
The agency further clarified: “As of December 2019, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has issued licenses to 12 companies providing call centre services and 5 companies providing call directory services. These local call centre providers provide services to the banking sector, telecommunication companies and Government.
“In the local telecommunication industry, BPO is very common. Several mobile network operators outsource their base station and transmission site management to servicing companies. In 2014, a major telecommunication operator, Etisalat outsourced the management of most of its technical aspects to Huawei, a Chinese telecom company. Local ICT infrastructure and cloud service providers also provide outsourcing services to many companies managing and administering the companies’ ICT assets”, it stressed..
As part of the strategy, the agency maintained that the government was also increasingly considering the outsourcing of some the country’s non-core services.
On the implementation of the National Outsourcing Strategy (NOS 2023-2027), the NITDA explained that one of the core pillars of the strategy that will be implemented would be to create an enabling environment for increased investments and deployment of technologies and infrastructure that will accelerate the promotion of the country’s human capital for outsourcing.
Specifically, it stated that “Investments would be made in the platformisation of the outsourcing potentials in the country. This will include providing basic underlining Infrastructure such as electricity, broadband, and data centres as well as efficient and effective front-end web platforms that will allow Nigerian individuals and companies to advertise their skills/jobs, acquire jobs, submit jobs and receive payment.
In addition, the agency stressed that the country would also leverage the existing web-based global outsourcing platforms to onboard as many skilled Nigerians as possible, adding that this will be achieved by creating awareness of the platforms and ensuring that skilled Nigerians register on the platforms.
