Tech4Dev and Univelcity have launched Hire From Nigeria, a campaign designed to connect Nigerian professionals, skilled workers, digital specialists, creatives and service providers with employers outside the country.

Table Of Content

From training to employment
Targets for outsourcing and migration
Infrastructure and verification
A wider services opportunity

The initiative, launched on August 31, 2026, is intended to move Nigeria’s skills-development efforts beyond training and towards international employment and service contracts. Its organisers say progress should be judged by sustained placements, rather than the number of people who complete training programmes.

Tech4Dev is a non-profit organisation that provides digital-skills training to underserved populations, while Univelcity is a Lagos-based technology and artificial intelligence institute.

From training to employment

Nigeria has expanded several programmes aimed at preparing young people for the digital economy. The 3 Million Technical Talent programme, known as 3MTT, has enrolled and deployed hundreds of thousands of fellows across the country’s 36 states. Women Techsters has trained more than 100,000 women, while Google Digital Skills for Africa says it has equipped more than five million young Nigerians with foundational digital skills.

The National Bureau of Statistics puts Nigeria’s working-age labour-force participation rate at 79.5%. However, the campaign’s organisers argue that a large skills pool will not automatically produce international work without stronger links to employers, infrastructure and systems that build confidence in Nigerian workers.

“The task now is to turn this capacity into contracts by organising our talent pipeline, meeting international standards, and consistently delivering quality, reliability and value,” Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment Jumoke Oduwole said at the launch.

Olisa Amadi said Nigerian companies and professionals often struggle to identify the specific markets, buyers and professional requirements connected to available opportunities.

Targets for outsourcing and migration

Joel Ogunsola, co-founder and president of Tech4Dev, said Hire From Nigeria is taking a demand-driven approach. The coalition plans to engage employers first to establish the skills and competence levels they require before making decisions about talent development.

“For us to even be sure of the requirements, we need to engage first with the employers,” Ogunsola said. He described the approach as asking companies: “We have a pool of young people to place with you. What are you looking for, and at what competence level?”

Ogunsola said the campaign expects to secure at least 50,000 direct outsourced jobs during its first 12 months, alongside about 8,000 placements through legal migration routes. Its broader ambition for 2030 is 150,000 outsourced jobs performed from Nigeria and 50,000 jobs through physical migration.

These figures are campaign targets, and the source information does not establish that signed job orders or completed placements have already been secured.

Infrastructure and verification

The campaign is prioritising outsourcing commitments and identifying states with the infrastructure needed to support international service delivery. Ogunsola said business-process-outsourcing hubs can provide electricity, connectivity, equipment, security and management, reducing the risks faced by workers operating from homes with unreliable services.

“You’re going to need to physically go to an office,” he said, explaining the model. He added that workers placed in such facilities would not be expected to depend on a generator at home.

Nigeria’s existing international outsourcing base remains relatively small. Ogunsola estimates that about 20,000 people are employed in international outsourcing and related operations, including customer service, technical support, data labelling and artificial-intelligence work.

The coalition also plans to build a central platform combining identity verification, security checks, skills validation and worker profiles. It is discussing partnerships with the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Interior and the Office of the National Security Adviser.

The proposed system is intended to help foreign employers verify workers’ identities, qualifications and experience while protecting customer data and intellectual property. Its final design, screening criteria, data sources and appeal procedures have not yet been specified.

A wider services opportunity

The National Talent Export Programme, or NATEP, is designed to develop the policy, market and institutional infrastructure for exporting talent, while 3MTT is focused on building the talent pool. NATEP has set targets of one million export-linked service jobs and $10 billion in economic value by 2030.

India, the Philippines and Costa Rica are cited as examples of countries that paired skills development with infrastructure, incentives, investment promotion or labour policy to build services industries. Grand View Research estimates that the global business-process-outsourcing market was worth $328.4 billion in 2025 and could reach $695.8 billion by 2033.

For Hire From Nigeria, the central test will be whether training and talent-development gains translate into verified contracts, reliable earnings and employment that lasts. Suggested retention checkpoints include six and 12 months, but the campaign has not yet reported placement, salary, contract-duration or retention results.