Mentoring for Research Programme (MRP)
Background
Africa has abundant sustainable energy resources yet poor in energy supply. Only 48% of Sub-Sahara Africa population has access to electricity. The region accounts for 14% of the world’s population, but only 4% of the global energy use. According to the World Energy Outlook, “Sub-Sahara Africa has now become the most electricity poor region in the world in terms of the total number of people as well as the share of its overall population”. Despite the abundant renewable energy resources in various African countries vis-à-vis the high level of energy poverty on the continent; the uptake of renewable energy on the continent is low. Renewable energy uptake and energy efficiency strategies are limited by various factors including the inadequacy of human capacity for training and research in the various fields of sustainable energy. Also, the development and implementation of strategies for environmental sustainability and climate actions are also limited by the inadequacy of human capacity in these fields in many African countries.
The Challenge
While there are efforts by various stakeholders to address the barriers to sustainable energy development and climate resilience in Africa, the inadequacy of skilled human resource remains a major challenge. Yet, adequate human capacity is crucial for education, training, research, policy and practice in various fields of sustainable energy and environment to achieve clean energy transition and climate resilience in Africa. Students in African universities are often not able to conduct research on sustainable energy, environment and climate topics in their discipline due to lack of faculty members with relevant and updated competences for supervision in their universities. Hence, many innovative ideas that could have been instrumental to improving the African energy, environment and climate outlook remain unexplored. Therefore, the wide human capacity gap for supervision of research in Africa universities limits Africa’s capacity to harness the creativity and innovative abilities of youth to fast-track clean energy transition and climate resilience on the continent.
Our Approach
Green Growth Africa initiated the “Mentoring for Research Programme (MRP)” to address the challenge. MRP establishes structured technical and thematic mentoring relationships between students pursuing various master’s and doctorate degree programmes in African universities, and experienced researchers and professionals (mentors) across the globe. The students who benefit from the programme are those who are conducting their research on sustainable energy, environment and climate change topics in their various disciplines. The mentors collaborate with the institution-based supervisors of the students to support and supervise the students on their research. Apart from researchers and academics, industry experts and professionals from think tanks also serve as mentors on the programme to guide mentees towards implementing their research to be practice-oriented and the findings are fit to guide policy direction. The one-year mentoring relationship also fosters exchange programmes, fellowships, internship, opportunities for further studies and professional opportunities.
Implementation and Impact
The programme currently has, as mentors, over 140 researchers and professionals from various institutions and organisations such as the World Bank, European Union’s Joint Research Center, Harvard University, Yale University, Imperial College London, Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO), Chatham House, the University of Toronto among other world-class institutions and international organisations. Since its inception in 2017, the programme currently has supported over 110 masters and PhD students from various universities in twenty-seven (27) African countries.
By working with our partners, ISNAD-Africa also secures fellowships and grant for most outstanding students (mentees) on the programme to participate in international trainings and conferences.
Philip Omenge presented his research at 8th International conference on Energy and Sustainability in Portugal
Philip Omenge (Kenya), Prof. Jatin Nathwani’s Mentee also presented his research findings at the 2nd International Conference on Solar Technologies and Hybrid Mini-grids to improve energy access in Spain, thanks to the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE)
