Digital Training Alone is Not Inclusion: What it Takes to Build Digital Inclusion Programmes that Lead to Work
Many digital inclusion programmes and models are built on the premise that teaching people digital skills will lead to economic opportunity. Konexio Africa's work in refugee camps and informal settlements across Africa tells a different story: training only translates into economic opportunity when people also have access to devices, internet connectivity, safe learning environments, and a model that includes market pathways to apply what they've learned.
The Assumption: If We Train Them, They Will Participate in the Digital Economy
Digital inclusion programmes have increased across Africa over the last decade, even though access gaps remain large. Donors fund them, governments endorse them, and NGOs deliver them. The World Bank, for example, recently approved the Inclusive Digitalisation in Eastern and Southern Africa (IDEA) Programme, designed to increase access to and inclusive use of the internet for more than 180 million Africans by 2032.
However, many digital inclusion programmes share a common assumption: that the primary barrier to participation in the digital economy is a skills gap and that digital skills training will help close it. It's a logical premise. If people don't have digital skills, give them digital skills. If they can't access economic opportunity, teach them how to find it online. The problem is that this logic skips several steps, and those missing steps are often where programmes struggle to translate training into opportunity.
The reality on the ground for the communities these employability programmes are designed to serve is more layered. A young woman in a refugee settlement in Kenya may complete a digital skills training programme and still be unable to participate in the digital economy because she doesn't own a device, can't afford data, has no reliable space to work, and has no connection to the markets where her skills could earn her an income.
Training happened. Inclusion didn't.
Fabien de Castilla, CEO of Konexio Africa, a social enterprise advancing digital and economic inclusion across Africa, has spent years navigating the gap between what programmes promise and what participants need. Konexio is not just a training provider; it is building an end‑to‑end digital livelihoods model that connects underserved talent to real work opportunities. His organisation's work paints a clear picture of what digital inclusion requires.
The Reality: Training is Only One Part of the Pathway to Work
Many digital inclusion programmes are designed as if training were a complete intervention. They deliver the curriculum, measure completion, and assume economic participation follows. In practice, training is one piece of the puzzle, and the puzzle is only complete when every condition is in place.
Konexio Africa's experience explains this better. They started with the belief that talent exists everywhere, even in refugee camps and informal settlements, and that technology is a powerful tool for economic empowerment. Years of experience implementing their programmes have shown them that this tool only works when the right conditions are in place - and that those conditions look different for each participant.
Participants begin from different starting points; therefore, programmes need to design different pathways, timeframes, and support structures around this reality, rather than assuming one journey fits everyone.
As Fabien shared with us: "Device access alone is not enough. Digital inclusion programs need to balance ambition with realism. Becoming an online freelancer or accessing quality digital jobs within a few months requires a certain level of foundational skills and motivation. If someone has never used a computer before, the journey is naturally longer."
This is not unique to Konexio’s work. Across Eastern and Southern Africa, digital inclusion efforts continue to face interconnected barriers: infrastructure gaps, unaffordable connectivity, and uneven digital skills. Treating these barriers separately can make programmes easier to fund and report, but harder to translate into real economic participation.
The gap between a training programme and a livelihood is not closed by curriculum alone. It is closed by addressing the full set of conditions that determine whether a person can move from learning to earning.
For Konexio, these conditions are not abstract. They include reliable internet connectivity, access to computers, safe learning spaces, and enough exposure for learners to build confidence through practice. When any one of these conditions is missing, training may still build awareness or basic knowledge, but it is less likely to convert into sustained economic opportunity.
"Our approach only works if we combine human potential with access to the right technology and infrastructure. We cannot simply deliver training content and expect impact. Digital inclusion is about aligning human skills and tech access together," says Fabien.
The question funders and programme teams need to ask is not only “What will we teach?” but also “What conditions must be in place for participants to turn learning into opportunity?”
Device access, reliable internet connectivity, safe learning environments, and practice time are key elements that cannot be ignored when designing digital inclusion programmes.
Fabien and the Jesuit Refugee Service during a training program at Kakuma Refugee Camp.
4 Realities Digital Inclusion Programmes Need to Design Around
1. Trust is built through local partnerships
Local partners do more than support implementation. They help programmes understand constraints, interpret context, build credibility, and sustain engagement.
Konexio’s delivery model illustrates why proximity to the communities is important. They deliberately work closely with local partners already embedded in the communities where they operate:
“We work closely with local partners already embedded in the communities where we operate. They help us implement programs faster, understand local constraints, and build trust with participants.”
In communities that have experienced short-term, inconsistent, or extractive interventions, trust cannot be assumed. Institutional trust is built slowly, through consistent presence and by the people already known and respected in the community.
2. The AI opportunity is already here - and it isn't waiting for programmes to catch up
Fabien shared an observation that challenges a widely held assumption in the development sector: that advanced technologies reach underserved communities last, if at all.
"We have seen AI tools being adopted much faster than expected, including by very underserved populations. Many young people in refugee camps are already experimenting with AI for learning, translation, content creation, or online work. That challenged the stereotype that advanced technologies only reach privileged communities."
This observation reveals that the people for whom digital inclusion programmes are being designed are already finding ways to access emerging technologies and experimenting with them.
The risk is not simply that underserved communities will lack exposure to AI. The bigger risk is that experimentation remains unsupported, uneven, and disconnected from learning, work, and income pathways.
Programmes should not assume learners are encountering AI for the first time. They need to understand how people are already using these tools, and then build practical, critical, and work-relevant capabilities that make experimentation responsible and productive.
3. Human Capabilities Matter Alongside Technical Skills
The tech ecosystem often treats soft skills as an add-on to technical training. Fabien challenges that.
"The more we automate processes and integrate AI, the more critical human skills become. Technical tools alone are not enough. Skills such as communication, adaptability, critical thinking, reliability, and problem-solving are increasingly becoming more valuable in an AI-driven economy."
As AI increasingly handles the technical layer of digital work, the human capabilities that remain scarce are the ones most training programmes treat as secondary. Konexio's model treats technical skills and soft skills as inseparable, training participants to work with clients, collaborate remotely, manage uncertainty, and continuously learn. These are skills that determine whether someone can sustain a livelihood in a digital economy.
4. Market demand should influence programme design
Many digital skills programmes are designed around what trainers know how to teach, or what curricula are available, rather than what the market is actually hiring for. Programmes designed this way risk producing graduates whose skills do not match what the market is actually hiring for.
Here’s what Fabien shared about their approach.
"It is not enough to exchange with companies occasionally. We spend time with them almost every day to understand evolving needs, workflows, and expectations. That close connection to the market is essential if we want to secure real economic opportunities for our students, especially in fast-moving sectors like AI and digital services."
In digital inclusion programmes, employer engagement is often treated as a placement activity - something that happens at the end, once training is complete. An effective model treats it as an input into programme design from the beginning - shaping what is taught, when and for which roles.
What Funders, Programme Teams, and Digital Inclusion Actors Should Take Away
Konexio Africa's experience points to a more complete definition of digital inclusion: one that connects skills development with device access, connectivity, safe practice environments, local trust networks, human capabilities, and market demand.
Digital inclusion is rarely the product of a single intervention. It's the conditions around training, not the training itself, that determine whether someone can move from learning to earning.
If you are building, funding, or redesigning a digital inclusion, employability, or digital livelihoods programme, Spindle Design can help you understand where participants are getting stuck and design stronger pathways from training to opportunity.