Capacity development plays a key role in UN DESA’s efforts to support countries as they strive to achieve global goals. As part of this work, e-learning is an important enabler for accessible and agile learning. We spoke with Nina Brandt in UN DESA’s Capacity Development Programme Management Office to learn more about the benefits of digital learning and how technology can help us all to be more connected.

Why did UN DESA develop an e-learning platform?

“UN DESA plays a unique role in engaging Member States on many aspects of implementing the 2030 Agenda. This includes providing timely, relevant, high-quality, and accessible learning opportunities. UN DESA’s Digital Learning Center is a curated repository of the Department’s digital capacity-building portfolio which includes self-paced courses and microlearning and is open to anyone interested in learning together with our experts. We see digital engagement and connecting with our stakeholders through the platform as a privilege that allows us to overcome time and space restrictions and offer our content to a much larger audience. Having this digital space as a new meeting point complements the experiences we collect when engaging through in-person workshops and advisory services, so we see it as an integral part to implementing our vision, which is ‘to be a premier policy and capacity building partner, by integrating digital technologies, to deliver agile support and achieve measurable results for our stakeholders.’”

What benefits does the platform offer its users, and how will it help countries?

“UN Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly emphasized the importance of technology in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. In his Strategy on New Technologies, he identified four strategic commitments where the UN system can take action to support governments in harnessing the power of technology. One of these is capacity development. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a demand-driven urgency in delivering purposeful and high-quality digital learning and knowledge-sharing. The “modern learner” is keen on receiving visually engaging, accessible, and customizable content that can be consumed at any time, including on mobile devices. The Digital Learning Center is still in its infancy, but we already offer a 24-module program on “building back better from the COVID pandemic” as well as self-paced courses on “Transformational Leadership Capacities” as well as “Accountability and Ethics in Public Institutions”, among others. Our courses provide context and recommendations on topics that are on the minds of anyone dealing with policy challenges for sustainability. UN DESA also offers tailored and longer-term capacity building for countries that have a specific need for support. You can find out more on the UN DESA Capacity development website. We hope that learners will engage with our content and find inspiration to apply the insights gained in their local contexts.”

What future developments can we expect from UN DESA Digital Learning?

“Digital technologies are crucial to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. There is an abundance of knowledge available on many websites, learning platforms and repositories and we need to try to curate knowledge in a way that it is easily accessible and digestible for our partners and stakeholders. Knowledge sharing is a superpower because we all have so much to learn from each other. For the time being, a lot of knowledge sharing happens unidirectional. In the next few years, we want to make sure we are equally able to learn from the knowledge generated by our stakeholders while we share the expertise that is available in UN DESA. The Digital Learning Center is just a starting point – it is a portal that welcomes you to engage with the Department’s thematic courses and free learning products and hopefully inspire more in-depth training that can be requested through our website. I hope that the platform and content we offer will evolve through the feedback we receive from our stakeholders and national partners. Ultimately, our goal is to support human connectedness for mutual learning as a basis for co-creating better development policies.”

If you would like to learn more, please visit the Digital Learning Center.