A reference we publish
cpd.africa: a reference on which qualification travels where
Working out whether a qualification is recognised in another African country is harder than it should be. We built a free reference that answers it, country by country, with a source and a date behind every claim.
What it is
cpd.africa is a reference site about the recognition and portability of skills in Africa. Its spine is a single question: which qualification travels where, and what to do when the answer is that nothing covers you.
It exists because that information is genuinely hard to assemble. Somebody holding a qualification from one country and working in another has to work out which framework applies, which body has a remit, where that remit stops, and whether there is a route for a qualification earned abroad. That answer is usually spread across several government sites, in several registers, in language written for administrators rather than for the person affected.
We publish it. Continued Professional Development Ltd, the company behind Open CPD, owns and maintains the site, and it says so on its own about page. It is deliberately run as a separate property with its own identity and no editorial slant towards us, because a reference that recommends its publisher is not a reference.
What is on it
Four things, all free and none requiring an account.
Which countries place a continuing professional development duty on their professionals, on whom, and where there is none. Built country by country from primary sources rather than assembled from secondary summaries. See it at cpd.africa/cpd-requirements.
The qualifications framework and its custodian, the route for a qualification earned abroad including fees and published turnarounds, which bodies have a remit and where each one stops, and the CPD duty. Start at cpd.africa/countries.
How claims are checked, and what the site does when something cannot be verified. It is set out openly at cpd.africa/method so a reader can judge the material rather than take it on trust.
Ownership, and the obvious tension in a recognition company publishing a site about recognition, stated plainly rather than buried. It is on cpd.africa/about.
Five countries are covered so far: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Rwanda. More are planned.
Within those five, the CPD duty rests on the statutory health regulator in each country and nothing else. Engineering, accountancy, teaching and law have not been checked in any of them yet. Every country page names what has been left out, and so does the comparative table.
That is unusual for a site of this kind, and it is the point. A reference that only tells you what it knows, and never implies coverage it does not have, is the only kind worth relying on when a decision rests on it.
Why we built it
A large share of the training providers who use Open CPD are working in markets where recognition is genuinely unsettled, and the questions they field from learners are not really about certificates at all. They are about whether a qualification will be accepted somewhere else, and by whom.
We could not answer those questions well, and neither could anyone else in one place. So the useful thing to build was not another page about Open CPD, but the reference that was missing. It happens to be good for us if people who find it later need a way to issue verifiable certificates, and that is a by-product rather than the design.
It also means the site has to stand on its own. It carries no advertising, it names commercial options only where several exist and only alongside the official route, and it is willing to conclude that the official route is the right answer and nothing needs buying.
If you are a training provider in Africa
cpd.africa answers the recognition question. If what you need is a way to issue verifiable CPD certificates for training you already deliver, that is what Open CPD does, and the country guides are the better starting point: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Johannesburg and Nairobi specifically.
Prices are shown in your own currency, including rand, on the pricing page. If you are paying from South Africa and a card is declined, the payment help page covers the usual causes.
Frequently asked questions
- What is cpd.africa?
- A free reference site on the recognition and portability of skills in Africa: which qualification is recognised where, which body decides, how a qualification earned abroad is treated, and where a continuing professional development duty applies.
- Who publishes cpd.africa?
- Continued Professional Development Ltd, the company behind Open CPD. It is run as a separate property with its own identity and no editorial slant towards Open CPD, and the ownership is disclosed on the site's own about page.
- Which countries does cpd.africa cover?
- South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Rwanda so far, with more planned. Within those, the CPD duty information rests on the statutory health regulator in each country, and other professions have not been checked yet.
- Does it cost anything to use?
- No. There is no account, no paywall and no sign-up. It is a reference site rather than a product.
- Can I rely on what it says?
- Every factual claim carries the source it came from and the date somebody read it, and anything unverified is shown as not yet checked rather than left blank. The sourcing standard is published so you can judge it for yourself. As with any reference, confirm anything a decision rests on against the body concerned.
- Is cpd.africa the same thing as Open CPD?
- No. Open CPD is a platform for training providers to issue verifiable CPD certificates. cpd.africa is a reference site about how recognition works in African markets. They share an owner and nothing else.
Look up a country
Which body covers what, where its remit stops, and how a qualification from outside is treated.