​In celebration of Africa Day which took place yesterday (25 May), Nico Elema, Manager of the Centre for Collaboration in Africa (CCA), reflects on the need for collaboration between universities to address challenges in Africa:

Africa Day is celebrated on 25 May each year, and offers an ideal opportunity to rethink how Stellenbosch University can help solve the many challenges of our continent – including famine, sickness, poverty, climate change, political instability and piracy.

It is widely accepted that higher education institutions are viewed as vehicles of innovation, where new knowledge is generated in service of society. But for innovation to truly have a social impact, institutions have to collaborate across boundaries to find solutions for these challenges.

The Centre for Collaboration in Africa was established in 2016 after the restructuring of the Postgraduate and International Office, to foster SU's African interests on an institutional level. These interests include the institutional, bilateral agreements with African partners, thematic mobility programmes and supporting African initiatives, which is not only managed by Stellenbosch University International, but also by different faculties. 

One such initiative is ARUA (African Research Universities Alliance), a network of 16 African universities, of which we form part, aimed at promoting research on the continent. A total of 35 SU researchers will work in areas like Food Security, Water Conservation, Mobility and Migration and Poverty and Inequality.

Another example of how SU is promoting innovation on the continent is through the African Doctoral Academy, which has been supporting and advancing doctoral training and scholarship on the since 2010. In adition to this, networks such as PANGeA (Partnership for Africa's Next Generation of Academics) and  PeriPeriU (disaster risk management), create opportunities for the new generation of academics to embark on collaborative research and doctoral programmes, especially in the arts, humanities and social sciences. NEPAD SANWATCE also offers researchers the opportunity to participate in water-related research.    

Since the inception of AfriNEAD, a disability research evidence project initiated in the Medicine and Health Sciences, in 2007 more than 18 African countries have pledged their support to advancing the debate on how disability research can be used to accelerate the process of realizing equity and human dignity for people with disabilities in Africa.

These are only a few examples of the projects and programmes that SU is involved in. And through these initiatives and the fruits it bear, we strengthen the message that Africa is capable of developing herself, to create a better future for her people and to be a fully-fledged role player on the international stage.