Tomorrow Today

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• Promote pilot projects linking universities, civil society,

communities and the private sector at the local level.

As a result of a meeting held on 17 April 2008, the MESA

partnership programme was presented to Ugandan vice

chancellors and members of the National Council for

Higher Education at a one-day MESA orientation work-

shop. The workshop was organized by the Ugandan

National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA)

for leaders in the higher education fraternity. Such meet-

ings constitute a niche for UNEP that can bring about

positive environmental changes, not only in African

universities but in the mainstream of government and

society as well. The student component of the MESA

programme held a two-week course in November 2007

in Njoro, Kenya. The Youth Encounter on Sustainability

(YES) course was held in Africa for the first time and

brought together 38 students (19 male and 19 female)

from 25 countries. The YES Africa course offers inten-

sive interdisciplinary training for upper-level university

students and young professionals, aimed at sensitising

the trainees on basic issues of sustainability. The course

was held in partnership with ETH-Sustainability-Zurich.

The second phase

(2007-2008) of the MESA partner-

ship was an international training programme (ITP) on

ESD in higher education institutions. Jointly organized

by the Swedish International Development Cooperation

Agency (SIDA), Ramboll Natura and UNEP, its objec-

tive is to support creative thinking and the development

of change projects in the field of ESD in universities

in Africa. This programme had participation from 31

participants from 28 institutions in 21 African countries

with projects ranging from changes in institution-wide

feed into national and global policy development and

implementation. Engaging this pool of expertise and change

agents has the potential to contribute immensely to shaping

environmental policy and action at the local and national levels

• Most universities have, as part of their core mission, local

community engagement and outreach activities. Through

partnerships with universities, UNEP can leverage universities’

outreach work with other stakeholders and contribute to local

and national development processes.

MESA is being implemented in three phases.

The first phase

(2005-2006) of the project implementation was

focused on the process of establishing and piloting MESA. During

Phase one, an active network of African universities willing to

participate in mainstreaming environment and sustainability

issues was established. They provided an effective partnership

framework for the MESA programme, with active participation

from partners including United Nations Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), United Nations University

(UNU) and Association of African Universities (AAU). A training

programme with a toolkit of flexible materials for use by African

academics to conceptualize and plan for multi-disciplinary educa-

tion for sustainable development (ESD) innovations in a range of

university disciplines was developed, and the materials have been

translated into French (with funding from UNESCO), to expand the

programme into major regions of Africa.

There have been three pilot training programmes involving

more than 87 academics from African universities. The first MESA

Awards were held at the World Environmental Education Congress

(WEEC) from 2-6 June 2007 in Durban, South Africa. Two universi-

ties

were recognised for their efforts in mainstreaming environment

and sustainability into their programmes and activities. Forty-five

university professors received certificates of appreciation for their

university-based innovations in teaching, research and community,

private sector engagement and management. The innovations were

judged, among other things, on their relevance to the social, economic

and environmental contexts in Africa and they reflect the way in

which universities respond to changing social needs.

Further to ensuring that the rich resources UNEP produces

reach out to universities to support teaching research and learn-

ing in sustainable development, UNEP held an Africa Environment

Outlook (AEO)-MESA workshop. The aim of the workshop was to

develop a comprehensive and flexible AEO module (conventional

and IT-based) that would be adopted and used in African universi-

ties. The curriculum has been used in five pilot universities. MESA

has been implemented in 90 universities in 42 countries and so far,

seven universities have transformed their curricula to reflect environ-

ment and sustainability concerns. This phase also began a process of

reaching out to university leadership to encourage the integration

of environment and sustainability issues into teaching, learning and

research with more support in terms of capacity-building and toolkits.

In October 2007, MESA was presented to the AAU Conference of

Rectors, ViceChancellors andPresidents (COREVIP) inTripoli, Libya. The

meeting recommended that vice chancellors, presidents and rectors should:

• Encourage and support innovations within the MESA framework

in their institutions

• Spearhead the development of intra-university and

inter-university research and action plans

Participants arriving at the first MESA Workshop, UN Office, Nairobi

Image: UNEP