Balkan Barometer: 80% of Western Balkans managers consider digital skills very important for doing businesses
01 June 2020
Tanja Miščević, Deputy Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) at the webinar on Development of National Digital Skills Strategies, co-organized by RCC and International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
RCC, ITU organize webinar on Development of National Digital Skills Strategies
Sarajevo/Belgrade/Zurich – “Benefits of digital technologies are multi-fold. Not only they can generate greater benefits from macroeconomic perspective but could also ease procedures and make borders less visible, processes less heavy, supply of new services to customers simpler and businesses much faster,“ said Tanja Miščević, Deputy Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) in the opening statement of the webinar on Development of National Digital Skills Strategies, co-organized by RCC and International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The Balkan Barometer 2020 yet unpublished edition show that there is a growing awareness among Western Balkans citizens for the potential of digitalization. Results shows that 80% of managers in Western Balkans consider digital skills very important for conducting their businesses and 55% of Western Balkans companies provide some form of training to upgrade their workers’ digital skills, but still e-government services are used by a mere 3% of the population.
“The region needs to address digital skills through strategic policies, stronger public-private partnership and concrete measures, both at national and regional level. Greater investment in digital infrastructure coupled with digital upskilling actions is a must and the RCC as a key partner on digital skills has already started working on it,“ concluded Miščević.
As part of the continuation of the Regional economic Area (REA) for the Western Balkans, digital upskilling and competence will be further strengthened through formalized and long-term strategic alliances among policy makers, private sector, academia and international partners, all with the aim to upskill and address digital skills, develop digital skills strategies, support regional learning and enable fast and easy learning for different targeted groups..
The objective of this webinar that gathered participants of the Western Balkan Multi Stakeholders Working Group on digital skills was to engage relevant stakeholders in the work on development of the National Digital Skills Strategies across the Europe Region, including the Western Balkans.