Pan-African organisation of United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa) and 01Talent Africa have signed an innovative and ambitious strategic cooperation and partnership agreement, based on both the power of digital education and the extraordinary potential of the talents of African youth
The UCLG Africa – 01Talent partnership aims to train more than 500,000 talents on the continent free of charge and according to the best global standards over the next 10 years. It is set to provide a clear response to Africa’s most precious resource, an ever-growing, creative, and dynamic youth and offers a promise of social and economic integration through the creation of 01Talent Africa / UCLG Africa collective intelligence zones: the Zones01.
The continent’s first Zone01 will be inaugurated in Praia in Cabo Verde in early 2022 and will host 300 young talents from Cabo Verde and 26 other African partner countries. These talents will be selected solely on the basis of their potential and motivation without any form of discrimination at entry. They will follow an innovative curriculum based on a “peer-to-peer” and gamified pedagogy that relies on 01Edu, the learning platform developed by Nicolas Sadirac and his team.
Within the next 18 months, the UCLG Africa / 01Talent Africa partnership aims to set up the first 5 regional collective intelligence zones on the continent: North Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa, and Central Africa. The choice of their location will be made on a voluntary basis according to the “first come, first served” principle.
Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, secretary general of UCLG Africa, said, “Young people are Africa’s strength. They have to be its luck too. This has proven to be true in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is also true for the conversion of institutions and organisations to digital that the pandemic has helped popularise. This conversion gives young people new employment opportunity and the space to exercise their creativity. The partnership between UCLG Africa and 01 Talent offers a unique chance to African local authorities to contribute to the training of young people in the digital field and to speed up their entry into digital culture as well as that of companies operating in their territories.”
