Winning team of the atingi innovation competition launches e-learning course for gender equality

In November 2022, we launched the atingi innovation competition 2022: E-learning for gender equality. In this GIZ internal competition, we invited GIZ colleagues to hand in project proposals for e-learning programmes that address gender inequalities. The three winning teams won up to 30 expert days with the e-learning agency GOPA/Common Sense to realize their ideas.

The turnout was fantastic and we received 25 outstanding proposals from across the globe. The proposals were assessed by a jury of gender and e-learning experts and evaluated based on the following criteria:

• E-learning for gender equality
• Feasibility, Scalability & Timeliness
• Outreach strategy
• Gender-transformative project design
• Design with the user
• Alliances

The team winning the first place was the project Capacity Development Support to Governance (CDSG) from Nepal. Less than a year after the kick-off workshop in January 2023, the team now launched their course on atingi.

The target audience of the course Strengthening Women's Participation in Local Governance are local elected representatives and municipal staff in Nepal. Through the course they can have access to inputs and examples how to consider gender affirmative actions in their plans and policies and are invited to reflect on gender-based stereotypes and intersectional discrimination mechanism. The aim is to make the course available to more than 750 municipalities across the country.

The team assessed that a self-paced e-learning course would be a low-barrier and easily accessible measure to reach out to a broad audience and sensitize on the benefits of gender equality and inclusive decision making in a context where many women are assuming new roles ands responsibilities in previously male dominated settings.

The course provides contextual information on the discrimination and inequalities women and marginalized groups face in Nepal. It also shares stories of female leadership and good practices of inclusive measures on a local level. It includes the importance of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in Nepal and how it can contribute to good governance outcomes. Overall, it highlights the importance of why gender equality is central to development.

The course has now been launched and is available in English and Nepalese. To complete the course the participants need to invest about 4 hours and will gain practical knowledge as well as tools on implementing GESI at the local level.

Launching the course in two languages is a big achievement – and a challenge – and wasn’t always a piece of cake. While the atingi competition came at the right moment for the team, at the time they didn’t know what the development of an e-learning course entails. The most time consuming part in the beginning was to find a local partner and a local consultant who would support the content creation. Another time heavy aspect was the translation of the course into Nepalese.

Part of the implementation was not only the creation of the course itself and its translation, but also adding a new system language (Nepalese) to the atingi interface to ease the usage of the platform for local users.

Overall, the team learned a lot and it was a great journey for everyone involved. The local partner is also very happy with the outcome, and while busy, will take over the e-learning course and are managing the launch, panel discussions, and the support of the learners. Because although e-learning as a format is great to offer learning to a larger audience, the digital literacy of the target group is a challenge. Therefore, the IT officers of the participating local associations are being involved in this process. They are invited to become the local atingi contacts that can provide help to learners. In addition to that, the local team is creating a video on how to use atingi so learners can get started more easily.

We are excited to see how the project develops!

Further information

• Learn more about GIZ Nepal here
• Video on how to register in atingi and enroll to a course
• Video on how to navigate and complete GESI e-learning course (English)

Interested in creating and publishing your own online courses for your project?

You and your project partners can use the atingi technical infrastructure and benefit from our support free of charge. Find more information here and get in touch with the atingi team to get started!