In December 2023, the « Secrétariat National pour le Renforcement des Capacités » (SENAREC), the DTC in the Democratic Republic of Congo, officially launched its Digital Ambassadors’ programme under the name of “Congolais Ambassadeurs du Digital” (CONADIG). As the national capacity development hub in DRC, and strongly endorsed by the Ministry of Planning, SENAREC recognizes the need to train young digital ambassadors who will become key actors in raising awareness on the importance of digital tools sharing knowledge and cascading training interventions at the community level. In particular, the DTC intends to leverage the CONADIG platform as the main implementation channel of the DTC Initiative to scale basic and intermediate digital skills training nationwide.

With the support of ITU and the Government of Norway, as part the ITU Project “Boosting Digital Skills through Digital Transformation Centres”, SENAREC kick-started the implementation of CONADIG with a series of train-the-trainer activities nationwide. Through this training, over 70 trainers will be trained and certified across SENAREC’s network of Centres of Excellence and equipped with the skills and tools necessary to deliver courses from the Cisco Networking Academy and Skills for All platforms, as well as courses from the HP-LIFE curriculum. These activities represent the first step of SENAREC in building a network of local, motivated, and committed instructors and facilitators capable of providing training to rural and urban populations and will cascade digital knowledge and skills within their respective communities. As of April 2024, the first phase of the programme was concluded in the Kinshasa province, and will be extended to Bukavu, Mbuji Mayi and Lubumbashi until July 2024.