Digital transformation continues to accelerate in Africa. The Nigerian government is stepping up initiatives to facilitate this transformation and reap the benefits of the digital economy.
Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday, June 29, approved a government-wide enterprise license agreement for Microsoft products. This was stated by Femi Adeluyi, Technical Assistant, Research & Development, to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, in a press release published this Thursday, June 30.
The agreement, we learn, is a strategy to reduce software acquisition costs for the government. It will be implemented by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy. With this new agreement, the government will be able to purchase all Microsoft product licenses in bulk and sell them to federal public institutions, if needed.
This initiative is part of the Nigerian federal government’s efforts “ to keep the cost of IT projects at bearable levels ”. This is necessary in view of its ambitions for e-government, digital transformation and the digital economy. It is with this in mind that President Muhammadu Buhari unveiled the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy 2020-2030 in November 2019 , followed in March 2020 by the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) 2020-2025 .
According to Mr. Adeluyi, this agreement “ will not only significantly reduce the cost of acquiring licenses for federal public institutions (REITs), but will also reduce and simplify the complexity of licenses, facilitate accounting and predictability. cash flow and to monitor the use and impact of government investments .