NITDA to issue frameworks for development of digital services

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) says it will soon issue frameworks for the development of government digital services and public-private sector partnership in its product, stating that it important for the government to speed up the delivery of digital services for the benefit of Nigerians.

The Director-General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi made this known during a virtual meeting organised by a subsidiary of the Agency, Office for Nigerian Content development ONC.

Kashifu explained that for successful development and delivery of government digital services, it is significantly important that innovative Nigerian companies are engaged very early in the project from the conceptualization and design stages”, he said.

At the virtual event with the theme: “Harnessing indigenous solutions of public sector innovation and digital development, “Kashifu, who was represented by Dr Usman Gambo Abdullahi, Director IT Infrastructure Solutions, said NITDA had assessed and cleared 62 Information Technology related projects worth 1,168,145,213,150 naira between January and May.

In his opening remarks, Barrister Kassim Sodangi, National Coordinator of ONC, Barrister harped on the need for the synergy between MDAs and indigenous content providers: “Our key objective is that, for solutions that are driven or adopted by the Federal Government, we want to encourage that beyond issuing out procurement notices and adverts, the MDAs will be able to sit down with indigenous content providers to discuss and come up with a plan or strategy to drive the development of the solution,” he said.

According to Sodangi, the National digital economy policy and strategy document is a pathfinder document to unlock the potential of the digital economy in Nigeria, adding that the virtual meeting was designed to allow stakeholders to come up with solutions that are indigenous to Nigeria to solve specific problems plaguing our society.

“This strategy contains eight pillars: They are; developmental regulation, digital literacy and skills, solid infrastructure service, infrastructure promotion of digital services, digital Society and emerging technologies and indigenous content development,” he said.