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UN Launches eLearning Initiative

A new UN eLearning initiative, launched on December 6th in Berlin, will offer developing countries opportunities to draw upon a rich array of training and capacity-building resources.

Sixteen UN agencies, meeting at a forum organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) during Online Educa Berlin, agreed to establish UNeLearn – a UN-wide network on technology-supported learning to share information and expertise, and to collaborate on the sustained deployment of eLearning.

The UNeLearn network will provide targeted training and outreach to help UN country teams implement common programmes for work in over 160 developing countries.

As a first step towards the implementation of the project, a comprehensive stock-taking exercise is planned to commence, early in 2009, to identify and integrate quality-assured training resources from across the UN system. The UN Staff College will host a number of online communities of practice that will bring together capacity development and training expertise in sectoral areas such as agriculture, education, environment, food security, health and human rights.

By agreeing to pool and share their collective training resources and shift towards technology-supported learning, the initiative will help UN agencies eliminate duplicative activities, reduce costs and reach a wider client base.

The initiative aims to maximise the coherence and effectiveness of UN projects at the country-level as parts of efforts to implement the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is inspired by the UN "Delivering as One" initiative that builds on the existing reform agenda set by UN Member States, which requires that the UN development system increases coherence and effectiveness of its operations in different countries. The UN family – with its many and diverse agencies – must act in a more coordinated way at the country level. The objective is – in short – a UN development system that delivers efficiently and provides more for the poorest and most disadvantaged.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner welcomed the initiative by saying: “Technology-supported learning offers tremendous potential to address the capacity development needs of a wide range of beneficiaries in developing countries.” He added that “the work of the UN country teams will ultimately be strengthened through this collaboration and Member States will be better served.”

The 16 United Nations agencies taking part in the technology-supported learning initiative are: UNDP, UNU, UNITAR, UNSSC, UN Secretariat, FAO, WFP, UNDPKO, UNWTO, UNHCR, ITC-ILO, IAEA, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria, WHO, and UNEP and UNEP/CITES. The Berlin meeting of UN agencies and programmes was convened by UNEP and was held from December 3rd – 5th as part of Online Educa Berlin 2008, Europe’s largest conference on technology-supported learning.

December 11, 2008

Source: UNEP

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