Latvia - eSkills Partnership
The Latvian National Digital skills and Jobs Coalition (named eSkills Partnership) was established in March 2013 by a joint initiative of LIKTA (Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association) and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of Latvia. The Coalition provides different stakeholders with a platform to discuss and execute digital skills development goals for Latvia and cooperate on joint initiatives. Among the partners are several Ministries and state agencies of Latvia , as well as the leading information and communication technology (ICT) associations in Latvia, Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well as ICT companies and academia.
Since the beginning of the Coalition, partners have been implementing large scale digital skills training projects for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the workforce, ICT professionals, young people and all citizens. The eSkills partnership has also initiated and actively participated of the development of the digital transformation policy documents in Latvia, such as the Information Society development guidelines for 2019-2020, Latvia’s Cybersecurity strategy for 2018-2022, and the national Digital Transformation Guidelines for 2021-2027.
The Latvian Digital coalition has been actively discussing and implementing the programmes and initiatives related to EU Digital Decade gaols 2030, particularly in digital skills areas.
On March 2023, a high level policy event “Priorities for Europe’s Digital Decade and Digital Transformation and Skills in Latvia” was organized as an opening for Digital Week 2023 in Latvia.
Since 2021 Latvian Coalition has been updating their website by developing a two-way information system with the Digital Skills and Jobs platform, thanks to the support of the CEF Programme.
National coalition details
The current activities of the Coalition are based on priorities defined in a Cooperation Memorandum :
Digital skills development for the labour force, including reskilling and upskilling activities.
Digital competence development and support of digital transformation for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
Digital technology implementation in education process and supporting digital competence development for educators at all levels.
Increasing the number of ICT specialists and promoting ICT careers for young people and women.
Developing digital skills for all citizens in order to fully exploit digital services.
Raising awareness of cybersecurity skills and cybersecurity competences development.
The Coalition partners represent public, private and NGO sector organizations in Latvia. The public sector is represented by several Ministries’ and state agencies of Latvia: the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, Ministry of Education and Research of Latvia, Ministry of Economy of Latvia, Ministry of Welfare of Latvia, Latvian State Culture Information Centre, CERT.LV - the Information Technology Security Incident Response Institution of the Republic of Latvia, and the Latvian State Employment Agency The business sector is represented by leading ICT sector associations of Latvia- LIKTA (Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association), Latvian Internet Association, Latvian Open Technologies Association as well as the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In addition, several research organisations and institutes in the ICT field are also listed as Coalition members.
