Promoting Academic Capacities for Sustainable Agricultural Resources Use in West Africa (Pro-RUWA)

Main Goals

• Capacity Building: develope a Graduate School consisting of an international English-speaking M.Sc. program for Climate Sensitive Resource Management and a Ph.D. Graduate Acadmemy
• Exchange: build-up a Transfer and Incubator Unit (start-up environment) and an active Alumni database
• Sustainablity: train finance administrators on international third party funding applications and international project management

Activities & Capacity Building

We build on existing structures of the three young universities UAC, UAM, and UDOC in West Africa that have recently decided to overcome the language barriers and internationalize their graduate education. Fostering university education, international relations, regional development, and operational links between the academic, public and private sector, we promote

• south-south and south-north-south exchange,
• Winter Schools to qualification of PhD students and academic personnel,
• advanced training courses for lecturers, IT / GIS staff, and administrators,
• teaching and learning environments through state-of-the art didactic concepts and effective use of digital infrastructure,
• scientific approaches to climate-sensitive sustainable resource use, and
• academic and business soft skills.

Our Partners

Pro-RUWA closely collaborates with

• International Center for Development and Decent Work (ICDD),
•  East African Network of Learning of Administrators and Researchers (EANLAR),
•  Global Partnership Network (GPN),
•  West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), and
•  Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Programme and how to apply

Within the Pro-RUWA Graduate School, we deliver various scholarship and funding options to MSc Students and young scientists as well as finance administrators. Every year, we call for applications for fully funded PhD research at our all three partner universities.

Pro-RUWA research themes:

• Rural-Urban Transformation,
• Governance of Resource Use,
• Food Security,
• Climate Change,
• Soil-Plant-Animal Interactions,
• Biodiversity of Plant and Animal Resources,
• Pro-Poor and Migration Policies, and
• Marketing and Certification along Agricultural Value Chains

Visit our main homepage for more information.