After entering into a partnership in August to accelerate South Africa’s information and communication technology (ICT) ambitions, ICT giant Huawei South Africa and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) have launched a broadband development initiative.

The newly unveiled broadband programme, which includes stakeholders research firm Africa Analysis and Digital Council Africa, aims to position broadband deployment as a foundation for a digital economy and provide digital skills training for small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs) in South Africa.

“The partnership aims to enhance the human capital development in our country while additionally building a skilled SMME sector,” said Huawei South Africa CEO Will Meng during the launch at the Huawei Innovation Centre in Johannesburg.

“This will equip them to start their digital transformation journey and inspire them to take a digital-first approach to business,” he continued, noting that the DCDT and Huawei are cooperating to undertake an SMME Digital Skill Transformation Programme, empowering South African SMMEs with ICT technologies and helping them to continue their development in South Africa’s digital economy.

Huawei’s existing programmes, including Seeds for the Future, 4IR Talent Development and its ICT academies, are already contributing to local talent development, which is part of the partnership.

In partnership with the department, Huawei has already trained more than 200 trainees from SMMEs.

“Given that we are in Women’s Month, we sought to combine our annual Women in Tech digital skills training for women entrepreneurs and invited women business owners to join this session. We hope that they will benefit greatly from the training and start embracing technologies like high-speed fibre or fifth-generation and look into the benefits of Cloud for SMMEs.”

SMMEs are fundamental enablers of the digital economy, Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Mondli Gungubele said during the event, highlighting South Africa’s significant socioeconomic potential.

“What we want to do is unlock that potential and unleash it and see how powerful this country is.”

Building up a digital society and economy can unlock powerful social benefits for South Africa, added Africa Analysis MD Andre Wills.

“When we speak about where we want South Africa to go, we speak about enabling technologies,” he said, citing studies in Latin America that show how the role of women in employment has increased once broadband has been deployed to a household.

South Africa could see similarly significant benefits.

“Women entrepreneurs and women-owned micro businesses traditionally play a critical role in South African society and by extension the economy,” Meng agreed.

However, women-led enterprises in South Africa still make up only 21% of the formal SME sector.

“We believe that as digital infrastructure expands it will improve this picture and that change will be rapid and tangible, so we are excited to partner with the DCDT on this SMME skills training and contribution to that vision for a digital economy.”

Under the wider cooperation agreement, which was signed on the sidelines of the BRICS Ministers of Communications Meeting in August, Huawei South Africa will share global best practices for the planning of digital economy policies and technology roll-out, besides others.

“Huawei’s wealth of technical expertise and global experience in digitisation and its application across the private and public sectors make the company well placed to take on an advisory as well as practical role in assisting South Africa reach its goals in respect of the BRICS ICT Development Agenda and Action Plan, which forms the basis of the agreement, as well as the country’s own National Development Plan 2030,” Meng concluded.