(image credit: CLM programme, GIZ Ethiopia)

Between September of 2021 and January of 2022, icebauhaus supported GIZ in the establishment of an e-learning focussed Community of Practice (CoP) for the Ethiopian country programmes. The pilot project was carried out as a moderated exchange between Ethiopian GIZ staff for the purpose of increasing the implementation of e-learning in Ethiopian GIZ programs by better sharing of experiences, identifying e-learning best practice and pooling resources between the programmes.

The process was centered around the implementation of a series of well-attended regular interactive webinar sessions touching on a number of e-learning related challenges, methods and good practice, practical demonstration of tools and experience sharing with invited field experts – all tailored to match the continuously assessed needs from the community of participants. Virtual spaces were used for both the live webinar sessions, asynchronous communication and documentation.

Through this pilot project, awareness about the advantages and available options of digital learning was created among a significant group of Ethiopian GIZ staff across different programs and exchange between ongoing e-learning related initiatives in different local and regional GIZ projects was initiated. Formats and channels of communication, learning and knowledge management were prototypically tested and learnings have been consolidated to inform the continuation of the initiative in future iterations.