According to an EPFLpress release, the African Cities Lab initiative comes in response to the rapid growth of African cities and the corresponding need for urban planners trained in regional challenges, such as urban mobility, resource availability, energy management, water supply, sanitation and the effects of climate change.
The initiative, which aims to develop training programs ‘in Africa, for Africa’, will provide urban planners with the tools and knowledge to develop African cities as sustainably as possible. To this end, EPFL will develop a training platform with massive open online courses (MOOCs) aimed specifically at urban development practitioners in Africa. The platform will be run by local project managers with the assistance of EPFL.
Five universities across the entire continent – Morocco, South Africa, Tunisia, Ghana and Rwanda – have already agreed to take part in in the initiative and will provide the skills needed to develop the MOOCs in French and English. The platform will be hosted at Sèmè City in Benin, which itself aims to be a catalyst of innovative solutions for resilient and sustainable urban development.
“Our goal with the African Cities Lab is to promote sustainable urban development through a combination of online courses and continuing education programs,” says Silvio Giroud, project manager at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
According to the EPFL, the MOOCs resulting from the initiative will make it easier to share best practices in urban development training between French-speaking and English-speaking countries by creating a knowledge network that spans the entire African continent.
