UNESCO Seminar on Challenges and Strategies for Science Cooperation with Africa Held in Bonn
Dr Shamila Nair-Bedouelle, UNESCO Paris © Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission
UNU-ViE actively contributed to the seminar “Challenges and Strategies for Science Cooperation with Africa” organised by the German UNESCO Commission in Bonn, Germany on 8 to 9 September 2009.
The seminar was organised in order to create awareness about the importance of science cooperation with sub-Sahara Africa and reverse the current trend of decreased student numbers from sub-Sahara Africa at German universities.
The central question was how different German and international stakeholders can better connect in order to support the development of sub-Sahara Africa through science cooperation.
Among the discussants were representatives from science, research and higher education, German ministries as well as multilateral organisations. Thus the seminar provided an excellent opportunity for the different bilateral (e.g. BMBF, BMZ, GTZ, DFG, DAAD, foundations and research organisations) and multilateral (UNESCO, UNU) agencies to meet, take stock and exchange experiences and best practices about their common focus on research and scientific cooperation with African countries. It was also an opportunity to talk about the relevance of science and research for African development.
Various stakeholders discussed the cooperation with Africa against the background of the “Strategy of the Federal Government for the Internationalisation of Science and Research”, and exchanged experience on how research organisations in Africa can be strengthened through bilateral cooperation. Furthermore participants addressed how the measures of multilateral (UNESCO, UNU) and regional organisations (AU, NEPAD) can be supported and strengthened through bilateral cooperation (e.g. Germany with African countries).
Participants © Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission
Dr. Virginie Aimard from UNU-ViE presented various e-learning projects as an example of “Capacity development in higher education in Africa”, e.g. the institutional collaboration between the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon) and UNU and the efforts to elaborate a strategic plan to deploy e-learning at this university.
Furthermore she presented the creation of e-learning materials for a Master programme on Integrated Watershed Management in East Africa, particularly focussing on the capacity building component of this project, i.e. the training of faculty staff to create learning materials and become e-learning experts themselves.
Dr. Aimard highlighted that these projects are based on a participatory approach, responding to the needs of the African partner and that e-learning is not to be understood as an additional technological component. In order to use e-learning tools to its fullest potential they need to take into account a paradigm shift in pedagogy and be systematically integrated into the university management structures.