Every year there is an increase in the number of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) available on sustainability topics. These courses are available for free online and open to anyone with an interest in the topic, lasting between three and fourteen weeks and taking three to eight hours per week to complete. But Universities are not the only organisations offering these MOOCs. A growing number of UN agencies are developing MOOCs as a way of not only raising awareness about the issues that they focus on, but also training individuals around the world who are working on these sustainability issues and the SDG on the ground. Most of the courses are self-paced and available in multiple languages. (Part 2 will be posted next week)
The UN Women Training Centre offers a range of courses in English, Spanish, French and Arabic, all free of charge. Courses are either self-paced, have fixed set dates and many of them can be customized for specific audiences. Many of the courses focus in on Sustainable Development Goal
5 on Gender Equality as well as Gender issues which are an important part across all of the SDGs. The self-paced courses take approximately 50 minutes to complete and current courses include:
- Women’s Leadership and Decision Making: This course provides an introduction to the concepts, international framework, and methods for working toward gender equality and women’s empowerment. It also offers users the opportunity to make links between gender and specific thematic areas such as work; education; political participation; emergencies; peace and security; sexual and reproductive health; sexual and gender diversity and human rights; and violence against women.
- Gender Equality in the World of Work: This course provides an introduction to the concepts, international framework, and methods for working toward gender equality and women’s empowerment. It also offers users the opportunity to make links between gender and specific thematic areas such as work; education; political participation; emergencies; peace and security; sexual and reproductive health; sexual and gender diversity and human rights; and violence against women.
The World Bank Open Learning Campus aims to provide learning that will build the leadership and technical capabilities of all development stakeholders-partners, practioners, policy makers, staff and the public. It offers a range of courses, also in several languages. You can choose from courses that are facilitated online or self paced. Courses include:
- Introduction to the Global Environment Facility: This e-course provides an overview of the GEF, a unique international organization that is dedicated to safeguarding the global environment.
- Introduction to the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework for External Audiences: This self paced courses provides an overview of the Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework which sets out the mandatory requirements for the World Bank and for Borrowers to address environmental and social risks and impacts in investment projects.
- Fundamentals of Disaster Risk Finance: This course looks at how governments have to make difficult trade-offs in the aftermath of a disaster. Gain key insights into a range of innovative Disaster Risk Finance (DRF) projects across the globe.
- Basics of Health Economics: Health economics play an important role in making health systems more effective, efficient, and equitable. This e-Learning course provides the foundations for participants to better understand health economics and its potential contribution to decision making in the health sector.
- Greenhouse Gas Accounting 101: Accounting for GHG emissions allows the World Bank and its clients to estimate the impact of projects on GHG emissions early in the project cycle. This knowledge can help task teams and client countries mainstream climate change mitigation action in the project design, and thus is a key step in managing and reducing GHG emissions in a cost-effective manner.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provides its courses on IMFx again free of charge and available in several languages. Its courses focus on financial stability, international trade and sustainable economic growth. Current offerings include:
- Debt Sustainability Analysis: This course explores what tools can be used to assess debt sustainability and how countries can effectively manage their sovereign debt with a range of hands on exercises and theories.
- Financial Programming and Policies: Available in English, French, Spanish and Russian, this course looks at the macroeconomic accounts, their interrelationship, and the analysis of economic development.
PRiMEtime 