In 2012, the West African Science Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) launched its first Doctoral Training Programme (DRP) within the framework of the Graduate Schools Programme (GSP). A key feature and valuable benefit of the GSP is its strong international focus. German universities are also involved in the DRP programme, with the aim to form tandem partnerships with African universities from within the WASCAL network. In this context, the German partners provide teaching and student support, curriculum development and support other organisational matters.
The project “German Academic Network for Capacity Development in Climate Change Adaptations in Africa (in short: NetCDA)”, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), will support the current cohort of WASCAL doctoral students in their research work and in finding scientific supervisors at German universities in the short term, the establishment of a European network that will initially focus on West Africa (WASCAL) but will be extended to the entire African continent in the long term is a long-term objective of NetCDA.
The sustainable implementation of the project is based on following steps:
- (i) in the short term, WASCAL doctoral students will be supported in continuing and successfully completion of their research work;
- (ii) in the medium term, the German network of the WASCAL graduate schools will be strengthened; and
- (iii) in the long term, an academic network will be initiated to bring together climate change researchers from Europe and Africa who are active in climate change education.
Our NetCDA WASCAL doctoral student cohort:
- Edward Mendy, Ph.D Scholar in Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management
- NN, forthcoming
www.netcda.org
