Partnership Formally Built between UNESCO Abuja and UNESCO-ICHEI

On 9 July 2020, the UNESCO Multisectoral Regional Office for West Africa (hereafter called “UNESCO Abuja Office”) and the International Center for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (hereafter called “UNESCO-ICHEI”) virtually signed a partnership agreement to jointly promote access, quality and inclusion of higher education using innovations of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the non-Sahel region of West Africa.

Mr. Ydo Yao, Regional Director of UNESCO Abuja, and Mr. Li Ming, Director of UNESCO-ICHEI, are signing the partnership agreement

The partnership agreement will be effective until 31 July 2023. The parties agreed, through joint and concerted cooperation, to carry out projects and activities contributing to digitalization of local ICT-related higher education curriculum, enhancement of teaching quality, strengthening institutional capacities of universities, and provision of learning opportunities for people living with disabilities.

Within the framework of the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE), the parties will work closely to map out qualified higher education institutions in the region to join the global network and benefit from the ICT-in-Education capacity development interventions. Such collaboration is aimed to form a regional virtuous circle of inciting teacher professional development, creating contextualized ICT-related curriculum, and improving higher education quality in response to the needs of social and economic transformation.

UNESCO-ICHEI is a Category II center for higher education located in Shenzhen, China and approved on November 13, 2015 by the 38th General Conference of UNESCO. Relying on the advantages of Shenzhen’s ICT sector and drawing upon China’s experience with the massification of its higher education, it aims to meet the local demand for quality higher education resources and to support Asian and African countries to improve the quality of higher education and promote educational equity. Currently, the center assists the UNESCO Shenzhen Funds-in-Trust Project in strengthening quality assurance and improving certification mechanisms in 10 African countries, including Cote d’Ivoire and Togo in the purview of UNESCO Abuja Office. Moreover, it has initiated the IIOE project, which is to enhance the capacity of partner higher education institutions and their teachers for increasing and enhancing their students’ access to quality higher education, and actively seeks partner higher education institutions in the region covered by UNESCO Abuja Office.