Great that you are joining us. In this course you will learn about Federalism & Decentralization in Africa. Before you start, we invite you to first go through our intro module and introduce yourself in the forum to meet your fellow learners. If you encounter any difficulties while studying, please let us know in the forum. For technical difficulties or questions regarding the course certificate, you can always contact the Coursera Learner Helpdesk. Good luck & we hope you enjoy studying in this course. In this first module you can also find the introduction video and an exploration of the three promises of Federalism and Decentralization.

This module will cover important concepts such as shared-rule and self-rule, autonomy, multiple identities and distributed authority. Don't forget to keep up with the readings for optimal understanding and application of this week's material. Do you have any questions, statements, remarks or other points you would like to discuss? Do not hesitate to post them in the Discussion Forums and a staff member or other course participants will be able to help you out.

In this module we will discuss the various legal, political, and social foundations of federalism and decentralization. As you can see, this topic requires a true interdisciplinary perspective.

In previous modules, you've learned the theory behind federalism and decentralization, as well as the most important concepts and building blocks, This module, we will look at three case studies to acquire insight into how federalism and decentralization work in practice: Nigeria, South Africa and Ethiopia.