Makerere University School of Public Health ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) funded by USAID’s Higher Education Solutions Network under the Office of Science and Technology in the U.S Global Development Lab with its core partners; Tulane University’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy (DRLA), Stanford University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) are proud to launch the first ever “State of African Resilience” Report. The event is scheduled Wednesday March 11, 2015, 2:00 to 4:00pm.
The report identifies major dimensions of resilience from the perspective of more than a dozen vulnerable communities across sub-Saharan Africa. It is based on the research and analysis of the ResilientAfrica Network (RAN), a partnership that includes fifteen African universities that are engaging with local communities to understand how best to prevent, mitigate, and overcome the recurrent shocks and stresses to which they are most vulnerable. The issues highlighted in this report range from; How communities in Uganda are contending with the effects of climate variability and post-conflict recovery? How communities in South Africa are addressing the link between HIV/AIDS and poverty? to How urban populations in Ghana are addressing the economic and public health challenges associated with rapid urbanization among others.
Bringing together faculty, students, and community members, the RAN is developing interventions designed to strengthen resilience at the community level and, more broadly, making its data publicly available to allow for development practitioners in the future to more easily identify the vulnerabilities and existing capacities of communities. “It is important that we develop all these interventions to address communities’ most pressing challenges in consultation with the target communities. The community voice is paramount in informing the solutions through innovation and thus the importance of the “State of African Resilience Report” as a reference document” Prof. William Bazeyo, Dean Makerere University School of Public Health and RAN Chief of Party/Lab Director.
The launch will feature none other than:
David Ferguson
Director, Center for Development Innovation, U.S. Global Development Lab, USAID
Thomas Staal
Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, USAID
William Bazeyo
Dean, Makerere University School of Public Health and Chief of Party RAN/Lab Director
Ky Luu
Executive Director, Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy, Tulane University and
Co-Chief of Party, RAN
Lekan Ayo-Yusuf
Dean, University of Limpopo’s Medical University of Southern Africa
Director, Southern Africa Resilience Innovation Lab
Dennis Chirawurah
Lecturer, University for Development Studies’ School of Medicine
Director, West Africa Resilience Innovation Lab
James Fishkin
Professor of Communication, Stanford University
Director, Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University