This e-Learning course, based on the Economic report on Africa 2017 titled “Urbanization and Industrialization for Africa’s Transformation” is finally here and starts on Monday 23rd October, to run for five weeks until the 24th November. The course is designed to provide interested stakeholders from government, business, civil society and academia with a better understanding of how urbanization can serve as an instrument of accelerated industrialization and structural transformation in Africa. This course is a collaboration between the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) together with its training arm, the United Nations Institute of Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
It is the second such course in two years to be run as part of the ECA/IDEP e-Learning Programme and the main objective is to build capacity on the African continent, to that effect it is jointly sponsored, primarily by the Capacity Development Division of ECA, and additionally by IDEP. The course is run asynchronously on-line, in both English and French, with course moderators for each week’s module drawn from staff members of two ECA divisions: Macroeconomic Policy and Social Development Policy, and one from the subregional office for Central Africa. To augment the learning experience, video content is also being used and these have been produced under the supervision of the Public Information & Knowledge Management Division of the ECA.
Some useful statistics on the course:
Whereas there were only 156 places for the course split evenly for each language:
- 516 applications were received from 50 countries, including 7 from outside the African continent;
- English Course - there were 190 applicants (128 Men, 62 women);
- French Course - there were 326 applicants (258 men, 68 women);
- Admitted to the course :
- English 77 (55 Men, 22 Women);
- French 79 (49 men, 30 Women);
- 25% of total applicants were women, though to ensure a more favorable gender balance the final list of admitted candidates had 33% women.
For more information on the course, please visit the ECA Website at :https://www.uneca.org/era-2017
You can also see the introductory video on the course on ECA’s Youtube Channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG6Lrl7-f0Y