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WHAT IS TRANSFORM?

TRANSFORM is an innovative learning initiative on the implementation of national social protection floors in Africa. Social protection floors are nationally defined sets of basic social security guarantees which secure protection aimed at preventing or alleviating poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion. TRANSFORM promotes critical thinking and builds capacity at national and subnational levels to improve the design, effectiveness and efficiency of social protection systems. It focuses on non-contributory social protection schemes and programmes.
Key to TRANSFORM is the creation of a movement of skilled social protection leaders in Africa to support transformational change utilising state-of-the-art knowledge through internationally informed and locally relevant materials. By supporting the creation and management of nationally defined SP floors which provide minimum social protection guarantees against poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion, the TRANSFORM initiative is aligned to the 2030 Leave No One Behind Agenda and specifically contributes to the achievement of SDG 1 and its target 1.3 in Africa.

 

WHY TRANSFORM?

Many training courses exist in the field of social protection and fundamental theories, concepts, approaches and techniques are accessible. However, the complexity of developing a broad, encompassing and functional social protection system remains a challenge for the relevant institutions. Thus, a transformational approach to teaching and knowledge sharing is required to bridge the gap between theory and implementation. TRANSFORM empowers learners to handle the complexities of their own social protection systems, appreciate diversity and uniqueness, own and implement creative solutions suitable for their contexts. All these elements are as important as the technical knowledge itself.

 

e-TRANSFORM

The TRANSFORM e-course is an adaption of the TRANSFORM training package and proposed activities from the face-to-face training. The e-course’s curriculum integrates several content areas, elements and activities and it is hosted on socialprotection.org Virtual Campus, using Moodle technology. The course virtual environment provides easy navigation through the content and proposes different types of interactive and collaborative activities. 

On the e-course, learners are expected to accomplish the activities and assignments, organized in 10 modules, within the given deadlines. However, they are given the opportunity to schedule their study sessions at their own pace.

  • General e-course format: Mostly asynchronous tutor-led Online Course.
  • Target audience: Senior technical-strategic level government officials from Africa.
  • Objective: Aims to build critical thinking and capacities of policy makers and practitioners at national and decentralised levels to improve the design, effectiveness and efficiency of social protection systems in Africa.
  • Methodology: Experiential learning (learning by doing) + collaboration.
  • Student’s workload: approximately 5 hours per week.
  • Duration: 10 weeks.
  • Evaluation: Participants are assessed by their engagement in the Forums, by the participation in the Individual Activities and by the delivery of the Final Assignment, which is expected to embrace participants’ main reflections upon the L&T Activities related to Leadership & Transformation.
     

e-TRANSFORM STRUCTURE

The TRANSFORM e-course is organised in a modular structure offering 10 modules:

  1. Introduction Module 
  2. Selection & Identification 
  3. Legal Framework 
  4. Administration
  5. Monitoring & Evaluation 
  6. Management Information Systems 
  7. Coordination
  8. Governance
  9. Financing and Financial Management 
  10. Final Module 
     

The e-course counts with a variety of learning materials, such as videos, interactive slides, quizzes, forums and collaborative group discussions that enable interaction with fellow participants, to facilitate knowledge exchange on designing effective social protection systems.

To further support participants, the e-course counts with a group of e-facilitators and one e-tutor, who provide guidance on the contents and encourage discussions, making sure that tge learning objectives are met. Participants also enjoy the support of the IPC-IG's team, who provides adminsitrative and technical help.
 

TRANSFORM DISTINCTIVE FEATURES

  • A strong regional orientation: TRANSFORM was developed by African and Africa-based experts to respond to the specific challenges and opportunities of building national social protection floors in Africa.
  • Promotion of regional training and facilitation expertise in social protection through the development of a pool of accredited TRANSFORM Master Trainers
  • A unique pedagogical approach, with cutting-edge technical content focusing on leadership and transformation.
  • A curriculum that is adaptable to context-specific circumstances and needs and that is freely accessible as a public good.
  • Focused on filling the “implementation gap”, by providing technical guidance to social protection practitioners engaged in the administration and governance of social protection programmes .
  • Guided by an Advisory Group of like-minded partner agencies committed to social protection system strengthening in Africa, provides strategic guidance to the TRANSFORM initiative.

 

TARGET GROUPS

TRANSFORM targets social protection practitioners seeking to enrich their knowledge base and embark on a leadership and transformation process. Specifically, TRANSFORM is targeted at African government officials, at national and sub-national levels (e.g. provincial, district), who engage with social protection policy and programme oversight, formulation and implementation.
The package mainly aims at the following “user groups”:

  1. Policy makers – responsible for political decision-making;
  2. Senior technical advisors - responsible for strategic level planning and programming; and
  3. Mid-/Lower technical officers – responsible for the delivery of SP programs and services.

 

PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH

TRANSFORM’s action-based and experiential teaching methodology is centred on the promotion of change and transformation. It offers state of the art knowledge on social protection relevant to African countries within the working environment of participants. Recognising that knowledge is already in the room, TRANSFORM seeks to highlight that knowledge in a structured manner. This constitutes the first step in the participants’ leadership journey, outlined through their personal commitments to establish change in their social protection programmes following the training.

 

DELIVERED THROUGH REGIONAL EXPERTS

By fostering linkages with regional and national social protection institutions and research centres, the TRANSFORM initiative has supported throughout the years the creation of a roster of regional trainers – the TRANSFORM “Master Trainers”.
The Master Trainers are accredited through the TRANSFORM Initiative. They constitute a select group of experts eligible for direct or fast-track contracting by regional stakeholders to deliver TRANSFORM trainings. Together with the curriculum and its pedagogical approach, Master Trainers are a key component of the TRANSFORM initiative and play an important role in its promotion and development. They contribute to seek out opportunities for applications in their own countries and support the periodic review and update of materials.
As of January 2020, 56 social protection experts from 29 African countries have become TRANSFORM Master Trainers. They include a new cohort of 12 French and Arabic speakers, who recently completed the Training of Trainers (ToT), the first step towards full accreditation to deliver the TRANSFORM curriculum in their respective languages.

 

ACCREDITED TRANSFORM MASTER TRAINERS

 

HISTORY & GOVERNANCE

TRANSFORM was developed since 2015 with financial and technical support from Irish Aid and the European Union Social Protection Systems Programme (EU-SPS), particularly the Government of Finland.
In 2016, the AU officially recommended the training package be made available to all African countries, thus furthering its development and promotion. African social protection experts and Africa-based officials of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) collaborated to the creation of the TRANSFORM curriculum, with technical support from Ingenious Peoples Knowledge (IPK).
Training applications, curriculum development and review continue to be supported primarily through country level technical and financial assistance of partner agencies that include the ILO, UNDP, UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP) and donors, including the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), beside different multi-donor funding arrangements. TRANSFORM online and face-to-face applications continue to be delivered in partnership with socialprotection.org (IPC-IG) and Learn to Lead.

Find more information on TRANSFORM on this brochure.

You can also contact the TRANSFORM initiative at:  [email protected]

 

OUR PARTNERS AND DONORS

Disclaimers and Rights

The content of this manual does not reflect the official position of the different organizations supporting the TRANSFORM initiative.
TRANSFORM is a public good. All TRANSFORM materials are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everybody is free to use the materials provided that:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes, unless expressly authorized by the licensor.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

For more information contact the TRANSFORM initiative.