SUEUAA Project Blog

Urban agriculture in Zimbabwe has become more than just about personal hobbies and households’ desire to access freshly grown food products. Socio-economic trends in urban areas have made it increasingly important for many urban households to use their backyard and other spaces to produce crops and animals to significantly meet their food requirements as well as sell for incomes. These ‘farmers’ are unique in their resourcefulness in terms of accessing farming inputs, information and markets.

The sector is also prime ground for fashionable food trends and changing wellness demands by urban societies. Farming extension services are usually not as traditionally structured as for rural communities but are influenced by input suppliers, peer knowledge systems and access to information technologies. In this paper we present the role and scope of universities in engaging these unique food producers as well as related stakeholders in urban food production systems.

The work of the SUEUAA project has had six principal outcomes:
 

1. Highlighting the important and challenging active role University of Duhok has taken and achieved in the fields of environment, agriculture,  health, city infrastructure development, gender, refugees and migration;
2. The establishment of research collaboration on the environmental impact of conflict and landmine clearance with Duhok City Landmine department authorities. University of Duhok to plan for the establishment of Landmine Department within College of Education;
3. Opened up of wider collaboration and awareness of the city authorities and NGOs projects with University of Duhok;
4. Strengthened academic links with University of Glasgow and established more collaborations for staff and research student mobility exchange programs in the fields of Education, Science, engineering, medicine and life sciences. This has in particular occurred through the Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility grant won by the University of Glasgow which has allowed 8 staff to visit Glasgow. These staff specialise in the field of Medicine, Chemistry, Structural Engineering, Mathematics and Statistics, Urban Geography and Finance. As a result of this, research collaborations have been established, in the fields of Infectious Diseases, Statistical studies of the effect of landmines on health, agriculture and economy, harvesting energy in the form of modern super capacitors in Chemistry and the development of batteries and membranes. Also, the treatment and recycling of waste material from building construction sites and reducing environmental pollution, and the study of the movement of the rural areas and communities to urban cities and its effect on the economy and social structure of the societies in the Kurdistan region are being covered in the exchanges, which started in July 2019;
5. Established academic links and learned from the projects of the other universities in Asia and Africa taking part in our SUEUAA program;
6. University of Duhok has obtained higher accreditation from Ministry of Higher Education in Kurdistan Region of Iraq in the field of collaboration with other international universities, such as Dortmund University in Germany, University of Malaya, University of Tehran, University of Sanandaj, Leicester University and University of Glasgow, and obtained international grants (for example, ERASMUS Mundus grants, DAAD (German) grants, a Fullbright scholarship in USA, and ERASMUS+ mobility grants) to support collaboration projects for cities and infrastructure programmes.

This is the 16th case study from SUEUAA (Strengthening Urban Engagement in Universities in Asia and Africa), written by Nematollah Azizi of the University of Kurdistan and concerns the contribution of his university to the inclusion of blind people in the university. People with disabilities represent a significant percentage of the community. Disabilities are diverse and can range from obvious impairments to invisible conditions. This includes people with sensory impairments /loss, including those with a vision impairment or who are blind.

This is the 15th case study from SUEUAA (Strengthening Urban Engagement in Universities in Asia and Africa), written by Dr Mpoki Mwaikokesya of the University of Dar-es-Salaam and concerns the contribution of the university to combatting pollution by plastics in his city. Globally there has been a long-term concern over plastic environmental pollution. Even though there has been a general trend where many countries have been adopting some kind of legislation to regulate the manufacturing and use plastics, there are many others which have not yet taken any measure.

One of the explanations why the issue of plastic bags pollution becomes a major concern is because most of the plastic bags produced are designed to be used just once and then discarded, resulting in mass amounts of chemically-laden debris landing into oceans and littering landscapes (UN Environmental Programme).

This is the 14th case study from SUEUAA (Strengthening Urban Engagement in Universities in Asia and Africa), written by Nematollah Azizi of the University of Kurdistan and concerns the contribution of his university to relief and assistance provided to communities following a recent major earthquake. Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, being crossed by several major faults that cover at least 90% of the country. The Iranian Plateau is subject to most types of tectonic activity, including active folding, faulting, and volcanic eruptions.

It is well known for its long history of disastrous earthquake activity. Not only have these earthquakes killed thousands, but they have also led to the waste of valuable natural resources. Since 1900, at least 126,000 fatalities have resulted from earthquakes in Iran.

This is the 13th case study from SUEUAA (Strengthening Urban Engagement in Universities in Asia and Africa), written by Elana Swanepoel of the University of Johannesburg. This case study revolves around the personal story of Ntutuko Tshabalala who eventually trained as a chef and started the company Nubian Uju Food and Hospitality Solutions, all with the help of two University of Johannesburg urban engagement projects.

I met her at the Saturday morning Soweto Farmers Lab arranged by Dr Naude Malan of izindaba Zokudla and requested that she writes her story.

The narrative in the attached is her own, passionately written and providing context of her upbringing, her inner growth and the opportunities which enabled her development. It is so openly and honestly written, and I have have done only minor editing not to lose the passion. When we are involved in urban engagement, we need to acknowledge the person that is benefiting from the engagement. That is very evident from this story. She is not just a number who benefited, but a person who has been transformed and this transformation will circle out to all those with whom she comes into contact.

We are very pleased to report that Professor Zeny Reyes and Professor Michael Osborne will be presenting a paper based on work of SUEUAA at a workshop of the Jean Monnet Network on Challenges to Multiculturalism and Multilateralism in Europe and Southeast Asia In Singapore on June 14, 2019. This network comprises the EU Centre in Singapore, Universitas Indonesia, University of Malaya and Maastricht University.

This is the 12th case study from SUEUAA (Strengthening Urban Engagement in Universities in Asia and Africa), written by Mpoki Mwaikokesya, School of Education, University of Dar-es-Salaam. SUEUAA is interested in how Universities in the Global South can contribute to solving geographical, economic, and social issues in their cities. 

Since 2015, the university of Dar-es-Salam had been running the annual campus-wide research exhibitions events to the public as one of the ways of improving awareness of its research activities and research outputs and address societal challenges, and some of that work is described in this case.

The SUEUAA project held its final partner meeting on the 8th of May at the University of Zimbabwe to discuss final outputs and reports for the project. Partners were also given a tour of the facilities at the University of Zimbabwe and met with a number of academics including the Dean of the Faculty of Education Dr Oswell Hapanyengwi. Lunch provided a useful network opportunity to share ideas and areas of common interest with a view to continuing the collaborations that have developed over the course of the project.