The European Union (EU) and the Government of Denmark have approved €11 million facility for Nigeria to support the current efforts by the Federal Government and its partners to transform the country into a hub of digital skills for millions of the youths, and by so doing make Nigeria an exporter of technology talents to the world.
Latest news reports indicated that the commitment by the EU and Danish government was made in March during the formal launch of the Three Million Technical Talent Programme (3MTT) Partner Network in Lagos.
The event also marked the transition of the digital skills acquisition programme for young Nigerians rom its pilot phase into the second phase tagged 3MTT 2.0.
According to official sources, while the EU contributed €5 million to the fund, Denmark pledged €6 million, thus further assisting the Federal Government on digital skills initiative.
In his keynote address at the forum, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, was quoted as describing the funding support as an alignment between Nigeria’s demographic advantage and Europe’s deepening talent shortage.
The minister explained that with Europe facing an ageing workforce, Nigeria had a young population that, if properly skilled, can provide the global market with the technical professionals for the digital transformation drive on a sustainable basis.
Already, the 3MTT programme has helped in training over 160,000 fellows across three cohorts, operating through more than 200 active learning centres in all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
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Based on the government’s training schedule for the programme, another 1.87 million young Nigerians are already in the registration process. In the 2026 fiscal year, the government has budgeted over N10 billion to support the programme’s next phase.
With the latest launch of Partner Network, the 3MTT programme is shifting from merely training the young Nigerians but also linking the didital capacity building endeavours to measurable employment outcomes.
It would be recalled that some corporate partners, including IHS Towers, MTN, Airtel, AWS, Google, Microsoft, and Huawei had pledged over $25 billion for the 3MTT programme even as NITDA and Airtel Nigeria have recently launched the 2026 Airtel-3MTT NextGen Fellowship for young Nigerians interested in digital skills acquisition for their career endeavours.
