PERIPERI U Leads DRR session at 6th ANIE Annual Conference

From 7-9 October 2015, the 6th ANIE (African Network for Internationalization of Education) Annual Conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania will bring together multi-level stakeholders in Higher Education and Internationalisation. The conference theme, “Moving from the MDGs to SDGs: The Contributions of International Higher Education” will engage experts from around the world to deliberate on the contributions of international higher education following the shift from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The background and rationale behind the conference theme stems from the fact that the attainment of the MDGs was to lead to the development of a shared future based on a common humanity and its diversity. Ten years after the launch of the MDGs (in 2005), what has international higher education contributed?

As debates are ongoing on the post-2015 developments, especially on the 6 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), what will be the role of higher education and, more specifically, its international dimension? The mobilization of both internal and external resources to revitalize African universities to enable them to address the challenges defined by the SDGs is an important agenda. The recently concluded Africa Higher Education summit recognized this and identified the critical issues for the future of higher education in Africa. The international dimension of higher education, especially research partnerships and mobility, received significant attention.

The 6th ANIE Annual Conference aims to address these issues, bringing together higher education leaders, international organisations, opinion shapers, researchers and practitioners. In particular the conference seeks to discuss subthemes including university partnerships for research and societal development, curriculum innovations in African Universities to address the MDGs, global partnerships for local impacts, the role of African universities and gender equality and women empowerment.

Periperi U will participate as a key partner, collaborating with ANIE and the Open University of Tanzania (OUT) to develop a dedicated risk themed programme on 8th October emphasising disaster risk reduction as a crucial cross-cutting issue, both for Africa’s higher education enterprise and its development agenda. The programme aims to be a dialogue with diverse stakeholders to discuss the influence and role of HEI’s and African academia in the debates and formulations of the new SDGs as well as the Sendai Framework on disaster risk reduction. Information with regards to disaster risk reduction related programme speakers and themes will be announced shortly.

For more information concerning the conference, please visit: Conference Home page or registration.