The purpose of this Project was to strengthen HEIs in East-Africa as developmentally responsive institutions by enhancing curriculum development, pedagogical approach and capacity of staff in the area of mathematics education and teacher preparation. The invigoration and modernisation of teacher training and the upgrading of curricula was meant to increase the level and enrollment of mathematics education, give a push forward to the education of mathematics teachers and support the universities' ability to embark on development projects with the surrounding society, industry and public governance.

Team

Matti Heiliö, Matylda Jablonska-Sabuka, Tuomo Kauranne, Heikki Haario, Miika Tolonen

The two-year FinCEAL pilot project aimed to enhance cooperation between research and science policy communities in Finland, Europe, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean by networking the Finnish research community and by supporting their participation in bi-regional research projects and science policy processes. FinCEAL was an initiative funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and implemented by UniPID, the Finnish University Partnership for International Development. FinCEAL activities were focused on the following thematic areas, derived from the European Union's bi-regional science, technology and innovation policy processes: Africa – Food Security, Information Society, Health, Climate Change and Renewable Energy; LAC – ICT for Societal Challenges, Bioeconomy, Biodiversity and Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Health.

Team

Eva Kagiri, Kajsa Ekroos, Melissa Plath

The ENhHANCE project proposes enhancements for SECE-AAiT and CoICT-UDSM in engineering education, research capacity and industry outreach through collaborative activities with COMNET-Aalto. The COMNET-Aalto department is a long-established and leading unit for research and education in Finland in the area of networking and communications engineering, and plans to leverage that extensive knowledge and experience for the benefit of the partner HEIs (SECE-AAiT and CoICT-UDSM).

Team

Prof. Riku Jäntti (Aalto), Prof. Jyri Hämäläinen (Aalto), Dr. Edward Mutafungwa (Aalto), Beneyam Haile (Aalto), Dr. Dereje Hailemariam (AAiT), Dr. Eneyew Adugna (AAiT), Prof. Henry Kundaeli (CoICT-UDSM), Dr. Honest C. Kimaro (CoICT-UDSM)

Marketing channels of agricultural surplus is important for improving food security in most African countries. The cooperative business form offers one way for smallholder and intermediate size farmers to sell their surplus. Twelve Tanzanian cooperatives were studied by semi-structured interviews to find out if the cooperative business model can reduce poverty and address food security. Four types of cooperatives were identified: traditional cooperatives, reforming cooperatives, new cooperatives and co-operatives with some innovations. Both cases of poorly working unions and more recent success stories were found. Features characterizing good cooperative work in Tanzania were identified. Recommendations on policy level how to support cooperative action is given.

Team

John Sumelius; Faustine K. Bee; Suleman A. Chambo; Shimelles Tenaw; Stefan Bäckman,

With the proliferation of electronic devices and the perceived obsolesce culture of consuming electronics, it has become important to study not only the current practices involved in the management of the resultant electronic waste (e-waste), but also how e-waste is interacted with in different cultures. As such, this research aims to understand the different factors (cultural and economic)influencing of e-waste management in Nigeria and in Finland.

Team

Dr. Sakari Taipale

Urban poverty in developing countries is fuelling the rapid growth of informal settlements which the UN defines as ‘slums’. Governments want to redevelop valuable slum land in the city centre for official and commercial purposes and to resettle slum dwellers to modern high-rise condominiums outside the city center, but target populations (former slum dwellers) are not always being reached by these programs. We focus on the cities of Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam and ask: What are the exclusionary processes and forms of political economy that give rise to urban poverty in both of these cities? What are the best methods for understanding the lives of the highly mobile poor and elucidating the often hidden and invisible processes of resource flows, networking, and creation of privilege? More specifically, we investigate the reasons for why the poor are not being resettled in condominium housing, and whether the mismatch between the government’s original plan and the actual outcome arise from (a) policies and decisions which have, intentionally or unintentionally, excluded the urban poor, or from (b) the choices made by the poor themselves, because the new condominiums do not meet their needs (for livelihoods, social networks, access to services, etc. Our research methods are ethnographic: primarily in-depth, semi-structured interviews, including life history interviews.

Team

Prof. Laura Stark, Prof. Elias Yitbarek, Dr. Tiina-Riitta Lappi, Dr. Susanna Myllylä, MS Yonas Alemayehu, MS Imam Mahmoud, MA Jyri Mäkelä

The main objectives of the cooperation are: • to develop a study module and associated curriculum on sustainability and clean technologies • to design and implement staff/expert training for sustainability and clean technologies • to develop UEM capacity to provide services for and to establish strong links with industry, national sustainable development efforts and initiatives and other HEIs in the field of sustainability and clean technologies

Team

Prof. Andrade Egas, Dr. Natasha Ribeiro, MSc. (Tech.) Mikko Martikka, MSc. (Tech.) Sakari Toivakainen,

Central to this study is the general accepted opinion that the lack of personal participation in decision-making processes affecting the wellbeing of a particular individual in any given community is a deep-seated threat to that individual’s human rights. Participation largely can refer to several aspects of contributing (opinion) or playing (action) a part in something. In most cases though, it involves taking part in an activity, and/or specifically to taking part in decision-making process concerning a particular activity. Generally, key to the philosophy of what exactly constitutes the right to participation of every human being, is arguably the fact that this right “lies in the core of democratic government based on the conduct of people and in conformity with the Principles” of international human rights law. Surely, this is a point all African governments agree on. In fact, the principles guiding this particular right are expressly worded in the oldest and most accepted human rights instruments. For instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) have both unambiguously, protected and promoted the right of “every citizen” to participate in all affairs within their communities.

Team

To identify technological readiness of developing countries for E-Learning, to estimate the metrics for measuring technological readiness of Nigerian Universities Undergraduates for Finnish E-Learning Courses, to report what undergraduates say about their readiness for E-Learning which can assist them achieve the academic outcomes, to track trends of student behaviors, attitudes and perception about E-Learning, benchmark what devices of theirs, they prefer for E-Learning studies and to find out which courses would be most attractive to Nigerian university students via E-learning and finally to establish which resources, such as staff and facilities that would be needed to support E-Learning

Team

CAAST-Net Plus is a network of 25 partner organisations from all over Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, working together to support bi-regional cooperation in research and innovation. Building on the activities and outputs of the CAAST-Net project (2008-2012), CAAST-Net Plus aims to: Encourage more and better bi-regional STI cooperation for enhanced outcomes around topics of mutual interest, and particularly in relation to the global societal challenges of climate change, food security and health. Foster discussion among stakeholders for gathering informed opinion and experience about the bi-regional cooperation process, formulating and disseminating it in such a way as to be admissible to the formal bi-regional STI policy dialogue process and to programme owners. ?Through informing the bi-regional policy dialogue for mutual learning and awareness, through building support for coordinated and innovative approaches to bilateral funding of bi-regional cooperation around global challenges, brokering the public-private relationship to foster improved uptake and translation of bi-regional research partnership outputs into innovative technologies, good and services, and through dedicated mechanisms to encourage bi-regional research partnerships, CAAST-Net Plus will make invaluable contributions to the quality and scope of the Africa-Europe STI relationship for mutual benefit.

Team

Melissa Plath