UoN explores sustainable development for Africa

UoN explores sustainable development for Africa

The University of Nairobi in collaboration with the University of Tokyo is engaged in two programmes that are addressing sustainable development issues in Africa.

The first programme is one that is in collaboration between Wangari Maathai Institute (WMI), the University of Tokyo and the Graduate School for Frontier Sciences (GSFS), which has brought together faculty from diverse disciplines to lead students in identifying and tackling transdisciplinary challenges in various domains of society such as energy and environment among others.

The collaboration therefore seeks to cultivate positive ethics, values and practices towards the environment by training stewards who foster peace, holistic sustainable development and link theory with practice. The agreement provides for student and academics exchanges between UoN and GSFS, collaborative research, joint public lectures and symposia as well as exchange of academic information and materials.

The 2015 Global Field Exercise which involves graduate students and faculty from University of Tokyo and WMI will be trained on sustainable urban development, with focus on sustainably issues in the informal settlement of Kibera. The training is scheduled to end in February 2015. From the UoN side, the programmes are being spearheaded by Prof. Stephen Kiama, Director, WMI and Prof. David Mungai, Deputy Director, WMI.

In addition, UoN is participating in the Next Generation Researchers (NGR) consortium- a group of young researchers (under 40 years) from the Education for Sustainable Development for Africa (ESDA) Universities. Already, the group has developed research proposals, attended symposia and published two research papers.

The second programme is the Education for Sustainable Development for Africa (ESDA) programme that is being implemented in eight partner universities based in Africa in collaboration with the United Nations University Institute for Sustainability and Peace situated in the University of Tokyo. The universities have developed three masters programmes including the Sustainable Urban Development (Msc-SUD) which is being offered in UoN’s Department of Geography. According to the Chairman, Dr. Sam Owuor, so far, 7 self-sponsored students have been admitted to the programme which will soon receive support from the African Development Bank.

The progress of the programmes were presented in a meeting attended by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Student Affairs, Prof. Isaac Mbeche who represented the Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Henry Mutoro, Principal, College of Biological and Physical Sciences, Prof. Bernard Aduda and Director, Centre for International Program and Linkages, Prof. William Ogara. The University of Tokyo was represented by Prof. Takashi Mino and Prof. Masafumi Nagoa.

February, 23, 2015