Airtel DRC commits to providing free internet to train 250,000 young people in digital skills
October 13th 2025
Strengthening digital skills is one of the priorities of the National Digital Plan 2026-2030 currently being developed in the DRC. This strategic document provides a budget of $1.5 billion to make the Central African country a digital hub by 2030.
Airtel DRC announced on Saturday, October 11, that it had joined the National Digital Training Program, the result of a partnership unveiled last September between the government and American technology companies Cisco and Cybastion. The mobile phone company is committed to providing free internet access to the 250,000 targeted beneficiaries.
” Concretely, Airtel DRC is committed to providing free access to educational content related to training modules via its network, a well-equipped training room for training trainers and to creating internship, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for some of the most deserving young people ,” the telecoms operator said in a statement published on its social networks.
This partnership comes at a time when the GSMA considers the high cost of offerings to be one of the main obstacles to the adoption and use of mobile internet. In the DRC, mobile internet spending represented 9.09% of gross national income per capita in 2024, according to data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which set the ratio at 2% for the service to be considered affordable. The organization estimates that approximately 70% of the country’s population did not use the internet in 2023.
The Internet will allow beneficiaries to access various modules covering cybersecurity, data science, programming, operating systems, technical English, digital transformation, and entrepreneurship. These skills are considered essential by the Congolese authorities for the jobs of the future in a context of accelerated digital transformation, where the World Bank estimates that 230 million jobs will require digital skills by 2030.
For example, the GSMA estimates that the digital transformation of the agricultural sector, which already employs 55% of the local workforce, is expected to create an additional 1.7 million jobs by 2029. “ Recent advances in digital technologies applied to agriculture now make it possible to provide advice and support to farmers more effectively. Technology can also connect farmers to markets much more efficiently through new models of aggregation, logistics, and supply chain management ,” the organization states in its report “ Driving Digital Transformation in the DRC Opportunities, Policy Reforms, and the Role of Mobile, ” published last September. In addition, 300,000 jobs are expected in the manufacturing sector and 500,000 in the services sector.
Congolese authorities consider digital technology to be an essential lever for economic and social development, as well as a vehicle for job creation and youth empowerment. According to a study published in 2022 by the Ministry of Planning, young people aged 15 to 29 represent 50.44% of the working-age population. However, their unemployment rate remains higher than that of adults, at 2.5% compared to 1.4%. Long-term unemployment also remains a concern, affecting 61.8% of young people and 61.2% of adults. The study further estimates that, to maintain stable unemployment and labor force participation rates, the country will need to create approximately 9.6 million jobs between 2022 and 2030, and nearly 35 million by 2050.
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