Global south universities launch climate consortium

Universities from the world’s least developed countries have launched a cooperative programme aimed at ending their dependence on climate experts and expensive consultants from rich countries, writes Mantoe Phakathi for Climate Change News.

Under the Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium for Climate Change, or LUCCC, launched in Kampala, Uganda, in late June, each university will develop a curriculum on a designated theme, which will then be shared throughout the network. For example, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania will develop a course on climate finance. That will then be adopted across the participating countries. Out of the 48 Least Developed Countries or LDCs, universities from 10 countries are participating so far: Nepal, Tanzania, Sudan, Bhutan, Mozambique, Uganda, Bangladesh, Gambia, Ethiopia and Senegal.

“What used to happen was that consultants from developed countries would fly to developing countries to do training and research on climate change,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh. “The LDCs challenged this in Paris [where the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 2015] because we need to strengthen the capacity of our own institutions to do research and provide training at national level, a long-term intervention.”
Full report on the Climate Change News site