African Cities Lab: review of the first phase of the project
© 2025 EXAF/EPFL
The challenge of building sustainable African cities capable of offering the population high-quality access to essential services will not be met without adequate training of those in charge of the transformation. This is why the African Cities Lab project has created the largest online learning platform on sustainable urban development in Africa.
Our mission: To train a new generation to meet the challenges of urban development in the face of a rapidly growing urban population.
The initiative, funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), aimed to create a digital education platform and its content on urban planning and development in Africa. The English-French bilingual ACL platform, based on open edX and hosted by partners in Africa, aims to offer quality MOOCs and online training for professionals. It will also serve as a forum for the exchange of digital educational resources and the management and governance of African cities.
Launched in October 2022, the platform now hosts 11 MOOCs in French and English, with more than 10,000 registered users. These courses have enabled nearly 700 professionals to obtain certifications.
Some of these MOCCs have been adapted into hybrid training courses organised in eight African countries, combining an online phase with a face-to-face phase. Each session brought together 20 to 30 professionals from various sectors, enriching the exchanges and responding to local needs.
The next step will be to roll out this initiative on a large scale (2025-2028) and guarantee the sustainability of the project.
Thanks again to our valued partners!
- University Mohammed VI Polytechnic
- University of Rwanda
- Sèmè City
- African Centre for Cities
- Institut Supérieur des Technologies de l'Environnement de l'Urbanisme et du Bâtiment (ISTEUB)
- Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
And to the MOOC development partners and their teams.
