Deakin creates first French-language version of world-leading humanitarian course

The new francophone Graduate Certificate of Humanitarian Leadership will begin next week, led by Deakin's Centre for Humanitarian Leadership in response to high industry demand.

Centre Director Associate Professor Phil Connors said the Graduate Certificate of Humanitarian Leadership was widely recognised within the humanitarian sector as "the most important course of its type in the world".

"French is the second core language of the humanitarian aid sector behind English - and an official dialect in 29 countries, including 21 African nations - so it makes sense to provide training in the language," Associate Professor Connors said.

"An increasing number of humanitarian crises in French-speaking regions has resulted in strong requests from a broad range of humanitarian agencies and governments to offer a francophone humanitarian leadership course.

"During the 2014/15 Ebola crisis, for example, French-speaking Guinea was among the nations most affected and in need of humanitarian assistance, and there is already a number of French-speaking humanitarian people working in West and Central Africa, Haiti, Madagascar and other francophone countries."

Associate Professor Connors said that to be accepted into the course applicants needed a minimum of five years working in the humanitarian sector, with at least three years in a senior manager role.

"We are targeting experienced people who are keen to work on their leadership development," he said.

Course Director Sophie Perreard said it was anticipated more than 98 per cent of students undertaking the course will be from an international background, with the residential units taking place in Paris, France, and Dakar, Senegal.

Ms Perreard said Action Contre la Faim (ACF), Medecins Sans Frontieres, World Vision International, United Nations agencies and other organisations had already embraced the plan and put forward their own humanitarian senior managers to take part when teaching commences 25 September.

"That's why this course is so unique - the way we work in collaboration with key actors and bring together the humanitarian practice and academic rigor in support of all of this," she said.

"There has been a lot of work getting to this outcome - we started the process in June 2016 - but the strong partnerships that have been developed along the way have been amazing and inspiring.

"This is what we can call true partnership in the interest of the students, and in the long run it will have real impact for affected communities."

Ms Perreard said the course used cloud based and residential learning with simulations (interactive high-pressure situations) to prepare students for real-world first-phase response, giving them constant feedback from assessors and peers.

Since its inception, the current English-language version of the course - which was developed in partnership with Save the Children Australia and is supported by the IKEA Foundation - has engaged more than 400 students.

The new course has been implemented thanks to a $A1.2 million award from the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, through Deakin industry partner and lead humanitarian organisation ACF in partnership with French higher education academic partner Institute de Relations Internationales et Strategiques (IRIS).