“Despite the Covid-19 pandemic affecting people’s everyday life around the world, Erasmus+ players all over the world coped with the uncertain sanitary situation and proposed challenging alternatives to citizens for them to keep studying and training abroad. On the 15th, 16th and 17th of October 2020, 5024 physical, blended and digital events were held worldwide to celebrate and promote locally Erasmus+ opportunities and mobility experiences.”

With regard to the African continent, it must be highlighted that this year, seven African countries took part in the celebrations, five of them for the first time. This is proof that student mobility is gaining importance and becoming more popular in Africa. With more than 100 events organised throughout the country, Algeria was in particular deeply involved in this year’s edition of the Erasmus Days. But it is not only this: In addition and although it was the first time the country took part, Algeria is even the non-programme country with the highest number of organised events!

Therefore, a whole page of the Erasmus Days Coverage and Impact report is dedicated only to the activities organised in Algeria (page 28, link available at the end of the article).

Below you can find a list of all African countries that participated in the 2020 edition of the Erasmus Days as well as a short description of how they got involved each. For those marked with a * it was the first time ever since the launch of these celebrations.

Algeria* (104 events): the Badji Mokhtar University in Annaba invited its students to a virtual meeting with students from other Mediterranean universities to keep internationalization alive despite sanitary restrictions.

Egypt (3 events): the youth organization JovesSolides organised the second #ErasmusDays festival in Egypt and in the Middle East, an intercultural exchange event to open the door for interested Egyptian and Arab young people who are willing to know more about Erasmus+ programme.

Kenya* (1 event): the EU Delegation to Kenya organised a Facebook event to celebrate Erasmus+ with local influencers.

Libya* (1 event): the National Erasmus Office of Libya presented the Erasmus+ activities in the country together with local authorities, ministries representatives, business organizations, civil services foundations, presidents of Libyan universities and ICO directors.

Morocco (1 event): the Moroccan Platform for Social and Solidarity Economy and Environment presented its Erasmus+ project FACE – Fighting Against Cyberbullying & Exclusion.

South Africa* (2 events): the University of Johannesburg shared the results of the SUCSESS Erasmus+ project aiming at strengthening university-enterprise cooperation in South Africa in order to develop and enhance lifelong learning skills, social innovations and inclusivity.

Tunisia* (2 events): the National Centre of Technologies in Education organised a webinar to talk about eTwinning and its value in pandemic times.

If you are an ASAF member and interested in reading the whole report you can do so in the members-only ASAF online community, click here.

At the Erasmus Days 2020, ASAF was actively involved by co-organising a webinar about Erasmus+ opportunities in 2021.

 

As Erasmus Days are celebrated annually, we hope that ASAF will contribute again next year and that even more African countries will take part for the first time.

Germany, Cologne 04 December 2020