ESDA Master's Programmes - UNU-ISP - United Nations University

Overview of the ESDA― How the programme was developedSince October 2008, UNU Institute for Sustainability and Peace (UNU-ISP) has worked with agroup of leading African universities to explore the possibility of jointly establishing a postgraduateprogramme on sustainable development in Africa in order to shape a new generation of professionalsto face the challenges of Africa’s sustainable development, with three-year seed fundingsupport from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.This project, entitled ‘Education for Sustainable Development in Africa’ (ESDA), has been promotedby three Working Groups: the first on Integrated Rural Development, the second on SustainableUrban Development and the third on Management of Mineral Resources. The projectwas based on UNU’s network with higher education institutions in Africa and elsewhere which areactive in this area, including international organizations such as UNESCO, UNEP and UN-HABI-TAT. The process of implementing the project was carried out by the ESDA steering committee,which included members of African partner universities as well as cooperating universities andorganizations from Africa, Asia and Europe. After three years of solid work by the partner universitiesand institutions including UNESCO, UNEP and UN-HABITAT as well as selected Japaneseand Northern European universities, the project has developed Master’s-level education programmescovering the three areas mentioned above.ProgrammeSustainable UrbanDevelopment(SUD)UniversityUniversity of NairobiKenyatta UniversityUniversity of IbadanSustainable IntegratedRural Developmentin Africa(SIRDA)University of GhanaKwame Nkrumah University of Science and TechnologyUniversity for Development StudiesMining and MineralResources(MMR)University of ZambiaUniversity of Cape Town2 Overview of the ESDA