SARUA’s new programme on “Capacity Development for Climate Change” in SADC

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The Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA), established in 2007 with its membership currently comprising of the Vice-Chancellors of 61 universities within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has decided to embark on a new programme, entitled “Capacity Development for Climate Change.” The aim of this programme is to revitalise higher education in the southern African region by building a regional scientific knowledge network to benefit the region’s response to climate change. It is also aimed to build capacity and leadership with African higher education institutions for climate compatibility development research, teaching, policy making and community engagement.

It is a five year Capacity Development for Climate Change programme which involves a consortium of climate change, development and higher education specialists from Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They are working together to implement the project under the guidance of Prof. Heila Lotz-Sisitka who holds the Murray & Roberts Chair of Environmental Education and Sustainability and heads the Environmental Learning Research Centre (ELRC) at Rhodes University and Penny Urquhart who is the Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report.

The mapping study approach makes use of in-country workshops with multiple stakeholders to capture as much information as possible through conversations with local experts. These outputs are supplemented with desk-based research and an online survey for all participants. Workshops have been held in Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, South Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Malawi, Tanzania, Angola and Zimbabwe. Each workshop was hosted by a local university and comprised representatives from government, civil society, private sector, higher education and other relevant national sectors.

For more information, please see the link below for a CDKN blog post on the SARUA project  http://cdkn.org/2013/10/feature-building-university-leadership-for-climate-compatible-development-in-southern-africa/?loclang=en_gb