Sustainable Integrated Rural Development in Africa (SIRDA)-KNUST GHANA
Background
The Sustainable Integrated
Rural Development in Africa (SIRDA) masters programme at KNUST was initiated by
the United Nation University (UNU) under its Education for Sustainable
Development in Africa (UNU – ESDA) Programme. Sustainable development as
defined in this study-program is in line with the term coined in the paper “Our
Common Future”, released by the Brundtland Commission (Sustainable
development is the kind of development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs).
Sustainable development has become an increasingly important developmental
issue, particularly in Africa. This is because it is widely recognised that
Africa faces a major challenge in overcoming the myriad of environmental,
economic and social problems to reduce poverty and improve human living
conditions, especially in the rural areas where the majority of the people
live. In these rural areas, low incomes, nutritional deficiency, food
insecurity, famine and limited access to safe drinking water have been
compounded by a host of other adverse factors including: low agricultural
productivity, land degradation, etc. In many instances, these adverse
conditions have generated social conflicts, unemployment and rural youth
migration. The UN acknowledges that these conditions constitute an unacceptable
paradox given that these unacceptable conditions continue to persist in the
midst natural resource-rich continent Africa. To reverse these adverse trends,
promotion of sustainable development initiatives is critical. It is in the
spirit of this context that, the United Nation University developed the
“Education for Sustainable Development in Africa (UNU – ESDA) programme with a focus
on Environmental, Economic and Social Development. Three Masters Programmes
have subsequently been developed from the broad programme with selected
universities in Ghana (i.e. University of Ghana, University for Development
Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) to focus on
training and developing the skills, intellectual and human resources needed for
sustainable development of Africa. The SIRDA program is therefore designed to
help achieve this aim. The programme is innovative, demand-driven, action
oriented and underpinned by a philosophy of human capacity development. Field
demonstrations and other practical aspect of the programme take place through
hands-on training in rural communities.
Philosophy
The programme is to produce
a critical mass of post-graduates equipped with the skills and competencies
needed to address challenges of sustainable development in Africa.
Aims and Objectives
Aims
The program aims at
producing a crop of postgraduates with the right competencies (attitude, skills
and knowledge) for addressing the complex multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted
developmental challenges of rural communities in Africa.
Objectives
The objectives are to train
and equip students with the necessary capacities to:
1. Define, identify, assess and
appreciate the different ramifications of the complex nature of sustainable and
integrated rural development challenges in Africa.
2. Apply a system thinking
approach in addressing stakeholder oriented problems in sustainable development
in Africa
3. Research into the
multi-faceted problems in Africa, communicate and advocate for policy changes
in addressing sustainable and integrated rural development challenges.
Expected Outcome
1. Graduates will have the
capacity to engage with relevant stakeholders in a concerted effort to
effectively address sustainability and rural development issues in Ghana in
particular and in Africa as a whole.
2. Graduates will have the
capacity to deal with complex socio-economic development problems.
3. Graduates will understand
the complexity of community service and adopt measures that would promote
community ownership of development programmes.
4. Graduates will be in a
prepared position to resolve development conflicts
5. Graduates will be good
advocates and contribute to policy issues on sustainable and integrated rural
development.
Alignment with the Mission
of KNUST
The program has greatly improved the institutional visibility
of KNUST due to its multinational and innovative, practical training approach
to sustainable development. It is serving as an important linkage between
KNUST, the UN and other international organisations and institutions in
executing the national and international agenda for rural development. The international
nature of the programme has enhanced the post-graduate training and has
augmented the contribution of the university to the national capacity building
needed to deal with contemporary issues in sustainable and integrated rural
development.
Enrolment
The programme is practically designed and adopts contemporary
Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) principles and approaches that
are critical to the performance of graduates in all sectors of the economy.
Consequently, the programme is open to all practitioners and academics in
various sectors that need to upgrade their competency skills to be able to
effectively deliver on their mandates and roles in resolving the complex ever
evolving sustainable development challenges.
Beneficiary institutions
Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, District
Assemblies, Non-Governmental Organisations, Ministry of Food and Agriculture,
Forestry Commission, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Ministry of
Energy and Mines, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Ministry of health,
Law Enforcement Agencies.
Dr. Amos Mensah
SIRDA Coordinator - KNUST
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