SARUA Higher Education’s leadership rôle in providing leaders, developing new science and technology, stimulating commerce, and reducing poverty in Southern Africa Southern Africa Regional Universities Association

2 SADC and NEPAD  Responsive to regional leadership policies and imperatives  Intellectual driver  Seen as a vital partner in social, economic and cultural development

3 Why an Association?  Not simply a ‘club’  Entirely programme focused & outcomes based  Programmes to Inspire  Leadership & linkage function  Resource & Advocacy Network

4 Panorama  Development and Retention of African Expertise & Excellence  New thinking & leadership  Social justice  Economic growth  Cultural development  Peace and Security  Political diversity

5 Key Objectives  To promote and strengthen strategic institutional and regional capacity building initiatives  To link with regional and international networks that:  advance information sharing,  collaborative research,  improved communication and transfer of knowledge on key strategic issues.  To be a key resource and driver for important African development initiatives such as SADC, NEPAD and the AU.

6 Start-up Focus Areas  ICT  Science & Technology  Institutional Leadership & Management Development  HIV/AIDS

7 Example Programme 1 ICT: The Plumbing The Plumbing

8 ‘BandCon’  Bandwidth Consortium  Regulatory challenges  Monopolies and Cartels  Infrastructure Development (especially rural areas)  Quality Assurance  Mixed connectivity  VSAT  Fibre  ‘Strong Agent’  TENET (South Africa) (23 public universities)

9 SARUA Fibre Study  8 SADC countries (+ Rwanda)  A full range of African partners  Building on existing and emergent initiatives  Consolidating existing research studies  Multiple donors (IDRC, World Bank)  Providing a showcase to the region and the rest of Africa for what works and what still needs to be done

10 Who owns it?  Open Access Leadership Function:  Academic Charter for Open Access (Content and Infrastructure)  Integration into regional policies and e-learning initiatives – SADC and NEPAD  ‘Watchdog’ function for privatisation or appropriation of new (and old!) knowledge  Technical resource for negotiating copyright licensing of research and research processes and outputs

11 Summary SARUA  Driver for national, regional & continental development  Innovation encourage new & better science  Inspire new generation of science students and collaborative projects  Participate effectively in the international knowledge economy