Guinea wants to close its digital skills gap, and a national academy is the plan 💻 🇬🇳

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Guinea, in West Africa, is preparing to set up a national digital academy aimed at strengthening skills in information and communication technologies (ICT), according to We Are Tech Africa. The project has just cleared a milestone: its technical and institutional feasibility study has been validated.

A validated study, a project still taking shape 📋

The feasibility study for the future academy was validated on Wednesday, September 23. But the project is far from final. The next steps will have to settle how the academy will operate, what infrastructure it will need and what training it will offer. The initiative responds to a skills need identified across several digital fields, including ICT, telecommunications and innovation.

A skills map to anticipate what’s coming 🗺️

In May 2026, Guinea’s Ministry of Communication, Digital Economy and Innovation launched a mapping exercise covering skills in ICT, telecommunications and innovation. The aim is to identify which skills are essential today and which will be needed tomorrow. The results are meant to guide future training and support programs, and to deepen the pool of talent able to carry the country’s digital transformation.

Digital skills meet a jobs problem 📊

The initiative comes against a backdrop of unemployment and underemployment, meaning people who are working but below their capacity or the hours they would like. According to data published in 2023 by the African Development Bank, 7.7% of Guineans aged 15 to 35 are unemployed, versus 4.8% for the population as a whole. Underemployment affects 38.2% of the employed population. The gaps by education level are stark: 27% unemployment among higher-education graduates, and 57.2% underemployment among people with a secondary-level education.

Keeping up with a fast-moving digital economy 💻

Workers already in jobs, in both the public and private sectors, now need to update their skills to keep pace with digital transformation. As the economy digitizes, the skills it demands change quickly. The World Bank estimates that 230 million jobs in Africa will require digital skills by 2030, a reminder of how much preparation is needed now.

An academy that is still to be built 🚧

Validating the feasibility study is a step, not an arrival: the academy remains a project. How it will run, what infrastructure it will have and what it will teach are all still to be defined. The coming months will show whether it can connect the needs identified by the skills map to training that young people and working professionals can actually access. The question reaches beyond Guinea: how can any country, Cameroon included, match what it teaches to what its economy needs?

Which digital skills matter most in your field right now? Let us know in the comments.