Background informationThe problems that are facing the world and Africa in particular are enormous; and they continue to grow despite a number of technological advancements at global level. Suffice to say, the reason could be that most efforts are based in the findings of research conducted by scholars with “external outlook” to African problems and African worldviews. They could be missing previously marginalised knowledge in their assessment. As a result the United Nations have made a call for recognition of local communities’ knowledge that is sustainable, and is tried and tested, to address the needs and aspirations of local communities. This will also fulfil a need for new knowledge and home grown research that would help our understanding of African conditions and contribute to the advancement of human development on this continent. According to Sawyers (2004), such research will ensure rootedness and sustainability of knowledge generation, as well as increase likelihood of relevance and applicability. Unfortunately at this stage, research is growing at a slow rate, partly due to the “museumised” research capacity of the aging cadre, and to slow increases in the number of young academics who are reluctant to adopt new research skills and new epistemologies of “hope”, which will either expose or replace the aging cadre. There is also a large proportion of students who do not complete postgraduate studies as a result of a multiplicity of issues. The participation and completion rates of African postgraduate students are crucial in order to deal with the evolvement of a new generation of scholars/academic in Africa. Africa has to solve its own problems through “sustainability” of identified and developed early career scholars and this event can make an excellent contribution to developing such scholars. Why the concernAfrica needs its own community of intellectuals. Innovative activities are dependent on the context and culture as well as socio-economic environment of a particular country/region. The needs of early career scholars in Africa are a dire source of concern. The focus for these research capacity building activities can be summarised as follows:
ISSBD InitiativesThe ISSBD has been very instrumental in providing financial support to have a number of research training workshops conducted in the African continent. Previous initiatives took place in Kenya (2009), Lusaka (2010) and in Lagos, Nigeria (2011). The impact of such training on early career scholars is enormous and has contributed to strengthening the participants’ confidence in conducting independent research. Some of them have since completed their graduate studies and have presented papers at local and international conferences. Most, importantly, they were able to complete their studies in record time (three years). Some of them have also had their papers published. To sustain research excellence, the organising Committee will request and ensure that presented papers are developed with the assistance of mentors and that they will undergo a rigorous process of internal review for publication in an identified referred journal. It will be our goal to write proposals to have 10-14 papers published in the identified journal. Why South Africa AgainThe ISSBD workshop was conducted in South Africa in 2006 at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Despite the successful workshop conducted with participants from most countries in the Southern African region, participation since then, especially the recent one in Nigeria, has dwindled were we had the participation of only four people from Southern Africa. Emanating from the above, it goes without saying that the need to sustain the identified early career scholars from all parts of Africa is of paramount importance. With the support of the ISSBD resources this goal can be achieved. Therefore, sustainability of any progress achieved is significant |
ISSBD African Regional Conference
