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General News

PhD Thesis of Former EUSA_ID Scholarship Holder Published

2019 08 vanderMarkElise van der Mark, who stayed for 2.5 years at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) with an "EUSA_ID" scholarship, now graduated at the "Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam" and published her PhD thesis with the title "Against All Odds: Exploring wellbeing transformation with mothers of disabled children from poor urban settlements in Southern Africa". During her stay at UWC, her thesis was co-supervised by Dr. Ina Conradie. Congratulations!

Please find the thesis here

Visit of two members of the German Federal Parliament and the Consul General at the SA-GER CDR

On 7th February the two members of the "German Federal Parliament", Ulla Schmidt und Dagmar Freitag, who stayed in South Africa for taking part in the 2019 State of the Nation Address by the South African President Cyral Ramaphosa, used the opportunity to as well visit two DAAD funded Centres of Excellence in Cape Town together with the Consul General Matthias Hansen.

They first visited the African Institute for Mathematical Studies (AIMS) in Muizenberg and afterwards the South African-German Centre for Development Research (SA-GER CDR). Prof. Jullian May, the director of the SA-GER CDR at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), stressed the supra-regional importance of the Centre, the high number of Alumni who successfully work in development research or development co-operation and the strong motivation of these Alumni to build networks like the African Excellence Network of all DAAD African Excellence Centres, "Tumefika" (which means "We have arrived") which was constituted in 2018.

2019 02 SA GER CDR

During the occasion, current Phd scholarship holders of the SA-GER CDR presented on their research related to poverty reduction and public administration, current Master scholarship holders presented the different Master Programmes of the Centre and Ulla Schmidt, Dagmar Freitag and Matthias Hansen as well met DAAD-Alumna Prof. Pamela Dube, the current DVC for Student Development and Support at UWC, Winnie Sambu as the representative of “Tumefika” and several other DAAD scholarship holders studying at UWC.

Prof. Wilhelm Löwenstein, managing director of the IEE of Ruhr University Bochum, took part in the event by making use of the DAAD funded videoconference system ZOOM and presented his vision of an African Graduate School as one option to foster the sustainability of the DAAD African Excellence Centres.

10-Year Anniversary of the Centres of Excellence

On the occasion of the ten-year anniversary of the Centres of African Excellence initiative by the Federal Foreign Office and the DAAD, a large network meeting was held in Berlin.

There are now ten university Centres of African Excellence in Sub-Saharan Africa, set up to train highly qualified future managers and leaders in Africa by significantly contributing to the quality and relevance of selected disciplines at African universities, to the creation of research capacities to the establishment of networks between African universities and research institutes including German partners.

2018 11 10YearsCoE
The SA-GER CDR Team in Berlin: (from left): Isioma Ille, Stefan Buchholz, Britta Niklas, Gabriele Bäcker, Mulugeta Dinbabo and Ina Conradie

For the achievements of the South African-German Centre for Development Research and for more information on the network meeting please have a look at the upcoming IEE-Newsletter (December 2018).

Final EUSA_ID Meeting took place in Gordons Bay, South Africa

From 18-21 March the final EUSA_ID Meeting took place in Gordons Bay, South Africa.

All South African and European partners of the consortium took part in the meeting in order to discuss the results and the sustainability of the programme, challenges during the implementation phase and best practice examples. Several scholarship holders of the programme were invited to talk about their experiences at their respective host institutions. Alumni work and networking were as well part of the agenda and the selection committee selected some final staff grantees.

2018 04 EUSA IDAlltogether it was a successful meeting with promising ideas for future collaborations.

IEE Ph.D. Candidate presented Her Paper at 3rd NEEDS 2018

PellowskaDarina Pellowska, Ph.D. candidate at the IEE, participated at the 3rd NEEDS Conference (Northern European Conference on Emergency and Disaster Studies) in Amsterdam, March 21-23. She participated in the Panel "Aidnography - The Everyday Practices of Humanitarian Assistance" and presented her paper "Towards Conceptualizing Humanitarian Aid Diversion – A Social Network Approach".

From November 26 to December 01 the International Alumni-Conference „Tackling the root causes of displacement in Sub-Sahara Africa” took place in Gordons Bay, South Africa

The Conference was the first joint Alumni Conference of all DAAD African Excellence Centres in Sub Sahara Africa (the Ghanian-German Centre for Development Studies at the University of Ghana, the Tanzanian-German Centre for Eastern African Legal Studies at the University of Dar es Salaam, the Namibian-German Centre for Logistics at Namibia University of Science and Technology, the South African-German Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice at UWC, the Congolese-German Centre for Microfinance at the Congo Protestant University, Kinshasa, the East and South African-German Centre for Educational Research at the Moi-University, Kenya, and the Kenyan Centre for Mining, Environmental Engineering and Resource Management at Taita Taveta University College in Voi, Kenya), organized by the South African-German Centre for Development Research (SA-GER CDR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa, together with the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE), Ruhr-University Bochum), Germany.

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IEE Researchers at the 3rd International Conference on Global Food Security

Dr. Tobias Thürer, Christina Seeger (PhD candidate), Anne Siebert (PhD candidate), and Carla Swertz attended the 3rd International Conference on Global Food Security in Cape Town, South Africa, which took place 3-6 December 2017. Anne Siebert presented on Food sovereignty and urban agriculture initiatives in South Africa, Christina Seeger gave an oral presentation on Consumers‘ willingness to pay for certified safe vegetables in Ghana, and Carla Swertz on Cost of illness among urban farm households in Ghana.

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IEE Football Team Reaches Semifinal

The IEE Football Team won its second match in the International Football Tournament of the Welcome Center of RUB and entered the semifinal.

After the lost match against the HGI (Horst Görtz Institut für IT-Sicherheit) in the previous week the IEE team was under pressure but managed to defeat the Department of Mechanical Engineering 5-3. The goal scorers were Raffael Beier, Robin Pass, Assem Ali Lali, Volker Häring and Mohamed El-Shewy. Compared to the first match the IEE team played well-organised, showed an impressive performance in the defence against a strong opponent and is now ready to take on the Faculty of Mathematics. The match will take place on June 1.

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Call for applications - International Alumni Conference

The South African-German Centre for Development Research (SA-GER CDR) at UWC/Cape Town (South Africa) together with the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) of Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) is happy to host the international conference

"Tackling the root causes of displacement in Sub Sahara Africa"
taking place 26 November – 01 December 2017 in Cape Town/South Africa

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Conference on "Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights"

2017-03 TheGlobalGoalsIn cooperation with the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN), the Institute for Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) will be holding a conference on "Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights" from June 06-07, 2017. After the Millennium Development Goals have been very much in the focus of criticism from a human rights perspective, the conference is intended to clarify whether initial experiences with the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals indicate a change of direction in this regard. The keynote speech will be held by Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

The venue is the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in Bonn.

For further information see http://www.sdg-conference.de.