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There is a growing body of research that focuses on Adult Education and Human Resource Development-related initiatives across the African continent, which emphasize investments in human capital and equitable distribution of resources (Nafukho, 2013). Nafukho and Muyia (2013) highlighted the explosion of eLearning in African higher education as one promising path to more egalitarian access to education. Additionally, Arthur-Mensah and Shuck (2014) called on the human resource development (HRD) community to contribute to the growing body of work throughout Africa related to eLearning and pointed to the explosion of mobile phone usage across the continent as a fertile domain for the deployment of workforce-related eLearning. While mobile learning in African contexts—and research around this phenomenon—have grown prodigiously in the intervening years (Bello-Bravo, 2021; Bello-Bravo & Lutomia, 2016; Bello-Bravo, Lutomia, Madela, & Pittendrigh, 2017; Bello-Bravo, Lutomia, Songu, & Pittendrigh, 2017; Bello-Bravo & Pittendrigh, 2018; Bello-Bravo, Zakari, Baoua, & Pittendrigh, 2018), it has not been substantively addressed in Adult Education & HRD journals. This research project aims to bring an HRD perspective to mobile learning in Sub-Saharan Africa. The researchers undertook a case study focusing on program planning aspects of delivering mobile learning content. In this case study, the researchers use the Interactive Model of Program Planning (IMPP) of Daffron and Caffarella (2021) to better understand how an organization that produces and disseminates eLearning content throughout Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for different aspects of program planning.
Although there is an explosion of research into mobile learning program planning in African contexts, previous studies have focused more on evaluating outcomes and artifacts than on the process of planning projects. However, process is critical to achieving outcomes, and hence the authors seek to provide insights into the processes of mobile learning program planning. In the remainder of this paper, the authors will: 1) provide a brief overview of the program studied in this case and their approach to producing and disseminating education videos, 2) review recent literature related to HRD throughout Africa, 3) introduce key aspects of the IMPP that are salient to our case study, 4) present the case study, and 5) discuss implications and conclusions for program planning and HRD in African contexts.