Development Lab: ResilientAfrica
Overview
Makerere University will lead the Development Lab ResilientAfrica, an international partnership that will apply science and technology to improve the resilience of African communities against natural and political stresses. ResilientAfrica will unite 20 African universities in 16 countries, representing over 300,000 students and faculty members, to form a network to empower African communities.
Understanding and strengthening resilience is key to enabling development in Africa. Rapid scientific and technical advances provide Africa’s increasingly educated youth the tools needed to accelerate and strengthen responses to development barriers, such as overpopulation, disease, chronic civil conflict, lack of infrastructure, and poor governance. These barriers alone and in combination prevent much of the population from escaping poverty, leaving them in cycles of crisis, and must be understood to be overcome.
Background
The success and failure of development efforts relies upon integrated and culturally adapted solutions. This Africa-based consortium will engage students to develop new solutions for Africans by Africans through contextually relevant and responsive tools and technologies. ResilientAfrica will build a shared understanding how to access, apply, and obtain development results from those tools and technologies, and deepen and broaden African experience and expertise in translating innovations in science and technology into practical solutions.
Planned Activities
| Resilience Framework | Based at a network of 20 African Universities, the Resilience Framework will provide insight into the effects of development programming on the resilience of populations |
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| Deliberative Polling | This tool will engage communities and crowd source data to understand the needs, threats, opportunities and priorities for African populations to allocate and prioritize solutions and aid to meet communities' self identified-needs |
| Resilience Innovation Labs (RIlabs) | A field network of four RIlabs will identify, develop, test and incubate science and technology-based solutions for development challenges in Africa. Located near USAID Missions, RIlabs are physical meeting spaces and focal points of technolgy transfer and commercialization of university research |
| On-line Course | The course "Transforming Lab Science to Impact Society will engage African and American students in team-based product learning. Development solutions will be refined through collaborative learning designed to nurture student ingenuity |
Goal
ResilientAfrica will innovate and accelerate science and technology based development tools in concert with a diverse set of stakeholders to improve African resilience to stresses and strains.
Last updated: February 22, 2013
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