A consortium agreement has been officially signed between the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), the French Development Agency (AFD), the Virtual University of Burkina Faso and the Information Systems and Digital Agency (ASIN) for the implementation of the Africa Digital Campus project in Benin. The ceremony marking the entry into force of the agreement took place on Tuesday 25 October 2022 and was attended by the Minister of Digital Affairs and Digitalisation, Ms Aurelie ADAM SOULE ZOUMAROU, and her colleague Eléonore YAYI LADEKAN, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
Funded by the French Development Agency and led by the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) and the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN) in partnership with the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), the project is intended to support the continuity and quality of higher education in West Africa by strengthening the network infrastructure and e-learning offering of local universities. In its pilot phase, the ADC project will roll out distance learning by strengthening the e-learning offering at two universities in West Africa: the Virtual University of Burkina Faso (UVBF) and the National Higher Institute of Industrial Technology of Lokossa (INSTI), Benin.
Through its four pillars of E-learning, Infrastructure, Community of Practice and Advocacy, Africa Digital Campus (ADC) fits perfectly with the vision of the Government of the Republic of Benin, which is to develop digital technology in higher education. ADC complements government initiatives such as the Benin Education and Research Network (RBER), whose first phase has already interconnected ten (10) university sites with services such as connectivity, IP telephony and videoconferencing, and the e-Learning project.