ED-ITP Sustainable Land Management

BE2022ITP246A103 01/01/2023 - 31/12/2025 The goal of our ITP is to reach global engagement for higher education (SDG 4: Quality Education), as a means to help attain SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 13 (climate action) and SDG 15 (life on land) through knowledge co-creation, transfer and valorisation. The target of the ITP is to maximize the outcomes of the MSc Sustainable Land Management (SULAMA) program, an interuniversity program (Ugent/VUB), that is particularly targeting at students from the Global South, and establish formal collaboration with programs at Bahir Dar University (BDU), by offering key modules of this master program to both master students and PhD students at BDU and professionals employed at government agencies. The trainees will follow either of two modules of MSc SULAMA: a module at Ghent University: Land and Groundwater Management, or a module at Vrije Universiteit Brussel: Urban Land Engineering, each consisting of 30 credits. The trainees will receive a preparatory training, by following the Scientific Communication on Sustainable Land Management course online in the semester prior to their stay in Flanders. As a post-training activity, the trainees will take part in the Integrated Project in the semester following their stay in Flanders. BDU will formally recognize the module followed in Belgium as part of its master and PhD programs. It concerns the following master programs: the Engineering Hydrology program, Hydraulic Engineering, Irrigation Engineering and the Earth Science program at Bahir Dar University, as well as PhD students in Water Resources Engineering and Management. Selection of the candidates will be done jointly. The selected MSc and PhD students must have an employment contract, either at BDU or other Ethiopian universities (as junior teaching staff), or at government or related agencies, and will remain employed after finalizing their studies. Beside the one semester trainings for selected trainees in Flanders, BDU will organize local work-shops and professional trainings targeted for public institutions and extension workers, with the support of Ghent University and VUB. Former ITP trainees will be involved as instructors and teaching assistants. On the long term, our objective is to build a joint master between SULAMA and BDU master programmes. An e-learning platform will be developed during the project, that will increase the dissemination of results and contribute to sustainability.