Strengthening Higher Education Stakeholder Relations in Africa

Results achieved as of March 2013 include: (I) Strengthening the ability of African universities in ten African countries to develop strategic plans to improve outreach to industry government and communities by: (i) conducting a survey of African universities on their institutional capacities and gaps related to university-industry linkages which was published on the Association of African Universities website; (ii) developing 13 revised strategic plans demonstrating strong linkages and solid plans to work with the productive sector (including industry government and communities); (iii) developing a training module on strategic planning for a Management Development workshop in August 2013; (iv) preparing a policy brief on strategic planning; and (v) developing a practical guide on strategic planning. (II) Improving university-industry linkages by: (i) producing six best case studies presented at a workshop in Accra Ghana in June 2012 to share information lessons learned and best practices; and (ii) developing a practical module on university-industry linkage for all members of the Association of African Universities. (III) Strengthening the African Association of Universities’ Stakeholder Relations by: (i) conducting an evaluation of the project; (ii) holding a workshop to validate the preliminary results of this evaluation in Addis Ababa Ethiopia in April 2013; (iii) working with six external consultants to produce six applied policy research on gender equity environmental protection business ethics graduate employability technology generation and uptake and intellectual property rights in African universities. These results are contributing to improving the ability of the Association of African Universities to support and inform its members share experiences and best practices and improve its understanding and knowledge of the issues and challenges faced by its members.