LIRA2030 Annual Research Forum begins in Dakar, Senegal

The four-day meeting will bring together 28 early-career researchers carrying out projects under the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa (LIRA 2030) programme, along with members of the programme’s Scientific Advisory Committee and other leading scholars and practitioners on urban and transdisciplinary research. Over the first two-and-a-half days, the researchers will discuss their projects, learnings to date, and any early findings, and will take part in interactive sessions on knowledge integration and strengthening science-practice-policy interactions in African cities. This is the first time that researchers funded through the LIRA2030 programme in 2017 and 2018 will meet in the same place, and the Forum will provide a great opportunity for peer-to-peer learning and forming new connections with other projects and researchers.

The LIRA 2030 Scientific Advisory Committee will also meet separately to select twelve new projects for funding in 2019.

Public event at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD)

A public conference on the topic of ‘Science for Sustainable Urban Development in Africa’ will take place on the afternoon of Wednesday 27 March. In the context of rapid urbanisation in Africa, the conference will bring together researchers and policy-makers to explore the potential of science to support innovative thinking on urban futures in Africa.

Speakers will include:

Seydou Sy Sall, Minister, Delegate General of the Diamniadio and Rose Lake Urban Poles
Fatima Sall Ndiaye, Institut Africain de Gestion Urbaine
Alioune Badiane, former Programme Director, UN-Habitat
Susan Parnell, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Cheikh Mbow, START International Inc., Senegal/USA

They will be joined by the following members of the LIRA 2030 projects:

Amollo Ambole, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Peter Elias, University of Lagos, Nigeria
Mabel Nechia Wantim, University of Buea, Cameroon

The event will be moderated by Mamadou Bouna Timera, Head of the Geography Department at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD).

The workshop for LIRA2030 participants, meeting of the Scientific Advisory Committee and public event are hosted by UCAD in partnership with the Senegal Academy of Science and Technology (ANSTS). The meeting will finish with a field trip to the Ile de Gorée, a small island off the coast of Dakar which is known for its role in the 15th- to 19th-century Atlantic slave trade.

Follow #LIRA2030 on Twitter for the latest from the meeting.

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