Free Online Certificate Programme On Research

USAID/West Africa's Evidence for Development (E4D), in conjunction with the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA), will launch a free online certificate programme in health project evaluation and operations research, on Friday, January 19, 2018.

It is open to members of the AfrEA and national evaluation associations in Sub-Saharan Africa region.

According to a news release issued by USAID/E4D and copied to the GNA, this will form part of efforts to promote the development of research and evaluation skills of institutions and individuals in West and Central Africa.

Hosted on AfrEA's website, the online courses are intended to strengthen research and evaluation capacity of researchers throughout the sub-region, including increasing the availability and utilization of evidence-based information, using online dialogue and peer-to-peer learning.

The release added that the programme is expected to strengthen the capacities of AfrEA members to conduct research and evaluation activities as well as develop a platform for mainstreaming evaluation discussions and dissemination of evaluation results among other things.

Sheila Mensah, Senior Communications, Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor, Regional Health Office USAID/West Africa, said her outfit was committed to building a strong network of local research institutions.

'USAID/West Africa is committed to expanding the evidence base, building a strong network of local research institutions and acting as a convener and catalyst so that data is available and used to make sound decisions around public health programming for sustained health impact,' she stated.

'Conducting operations research and evaluations and disseminating the findings is key to our work. The online certificate programme is therefore meant to build on the research and evaluation skills of institutions and individuals in West and Central Africa, and beyond, so these skills will be sustained after the life of the E4D project,' said Tanou Diallo, Chief of Party of the USAID/West Africa's E4D.

"AfrEA's mandate is to build and strengthen evaluation capacity in Africa. It has become increasingly urgent that as many evaluators as possible access different platforms to increase their capacity to meet the rising demand for evaluations.

The AfrEA is grateful to USAID/West Africa Evidence for Development for providing seed funding to set up an online platform. The online platform will reach out widely to our Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs) and members in both French and English speaking Africa.

It is hoped that the increased capacity will contribute to evaluators to undertake quality evaluations as well as influence governments in using evaluation results for evidence based decision making".

The USAID/West Africa's Evidence for Development is a five-year (January 2015 - January 2020) activity with the overall objective to increase the availability of evidence in health interventions to inform policy advocacy and programme planning, including resource allocation.