Alumni Conference in Berlin/Germany - Call for Applications

"Implementing the SDGs – Practical Challenges, Creative Solutions and Best Practices for Knowledge Transfer and Policy Learning"

This year an Alumni conference of joint MA programmes takes place from 27th to 30th of July in Berlin.

Alumni of the MADM (Bochum Programme) Cape Town are invited to send their applications. The conference is hosted by the Master’s in International and Development Economics (MIDE) at HTW Berlin and organized in collaboration with the Small Enterprise Promotion and Training Programme (SEPT; University of Leipzig), and IEE’s MA in Development Management Programme. The conference is financially supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the German Foreign Office (AA). Selected participants who are international alumni of the cooperating institutions therefore have the opportunity to get financial support for travel and accommodation costs.

The deadline for application at HTW Berlin is 9 March 2020. Further details regarding the application procedure are available here (PDF).

New Centre graduates from the "Bochum Programme"

Finally, it is done! We are happy to welcome new graduates to the alumni network of the SA-GER CDR. 12 students from the "Bochum Programme of Development Management" (MADM) obtained their Master's degree. They received their graduation certificates on Saturday, 30th of November. Earlier that week, they had successfully defended their master theses on interesting topics like innovation hubs, certification of cocoa farmers, and survival strategies of street traders (just to name some of them).

Our graduates now pursue new goals. Most of them chose the opportunity to strive for a second (UWC) MA degree and then will head for the practical area. We wish our graduates all the best for their future career and trust that they will find exciting positions! We are looking forward to hear from our alumni soon.

New Journal Article by two MADM Alumni

Nardos Legesse Beyene, Alumnus of IEE’s MA in Development Management, together with Prof. Mulugeta F. Dinbabo, also IEE Alumnus and nowadays Acting Director of the Institute for Social Development, IEE’s partner institution at the University of the Western Cape/South Africa, published an article on

An Empirical Evaluation of the Link between Women Participation in Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) and Poverty Reduction in Ethiopia

Read more: New Journal Article by two MADM Alumni

The deadline for the Call for scholarship applications for the intake 2020 has expired!

The deadline for the Call for scholarship applications for the intake 2020 has expired! Applications submitted after the 30th June are not eligible!

Learning by Doing in the Field of Development

Macmillan Bonomali from Malawi has spent an internship period at UNU-FLORES in Bonn during his studies in the MA in Development Management programme. Find out about his experiences in an interview published by his internship organization.

Photo: UNU-FLORES)

Visit of two members of the German Federal Parliament and the Consul General at the SA-GER CDR

On 7th February the two members of the “German Federal Parliament”, Ulla Schmidt und Dagmar Freitag, who stayed in South Africa for taking part in the 2019 State of the Nation Address by the South African President Cyral Ramaphosa, used the opportunity to as well visit two DAAD funded Centres of Excellence in Cape Town together with the Consul General Matthias Hansen.They first visited the African Institute for Mathematical Studies (AIMS) in Muizenberg and afterwards the South African-German Centre for Development Research (SA-GER CDR).

Read more: Visit of two members of the German Federal Parliament and the Consul General at the SA-GER CDR

10-year anniversary of the Centres of Excellence

On the occasion of the ten-year anniversary of the Centres of African Excellence initiative by the Federal Foreign Office and the DAAD, a large network meeting was held in Berlin.
There are now ten university Centres of African Excellence in Sub-Saharan Africa, set up to train highly qualified future managers and leaders in Africa by significantly contributing to the quality and relevance of selected disciplines at African universities, to the creation of research capacities to the establishment of networks between African universities and research institutes including German partners.

The SA-GER CDR Team in Berlin: (from left): Isioma Ille, Stefan Buchholz, Britta Niklas, Gabriele Bäcker, Mulugeta Dinbabo and Ina Conradie

For the achievements of the South African-German Centre for Development Research and for more information on the network meeting please have a look at the upcoming IEE-Newsletter (December 2018).

CDR's achievements after 10 years of operation

After 10 years of operation, CDR recently reported about achievements so far to DAAD. The following provides a summary of these achievements:

• Scholarship applications received from all over Sub-Sahara Africa increased tenfold over CDR’s years of operation and reached nearly 900 for the 2018 intake
• 78 Master scholarship holders from 14 countries have been accepted for studies in one of the CDR's Master programmes, 58 grantees completed their studies successfully so far, 16 grantees are still on their way to graduation, the completion ratio will reach 95% after the remaining candidates have completed their studies. Overall, 299 candidates graduated from CDR’s Master programmes. 16% of Master scholarship holders completed two degrees of CDR and 5% have been accepted for PhD studies afterwards. More than 30 Master theses have been published electronically via http://etd.uwc.ac.za/ (a detailed list of MA Theses topics is available here).
• 25 PhD scholarship holders from 11 countries have been accepted for PhD studies at CDR, 16 of them completed their projects so far, 8 are still working towards their graduation. The completion ratio will reach 96% after the remaining candidates will have completed their projects.Overall, 35 PhD candidates graduated from the Centre’s PhD programmes. All PhD dissertations have been published at least electronically. A detailed list of PhD Theses topics and links to publishedd theses are available here.
• Additional training offers such as seminars on report writing, scientific writing and presentation have been widely implemented. These training offers have been complemented by regular team building events. Since 2013 CDR in addition offers a career training event for scholarship holders once a year to support labour market integration. Short term support has been given to CDR Master Scholarship holders for study periods in Germany. About 10 CDR PhD scholarship holders had the opportunity to complete short-term stays at Ruhr University Bochum to take part in structured course work of the PhD IDS or other PhD related events like the PhD conference in International Development Studies.
• Co-operation activities in research and higher education with additional partners in South Africa, in other Sub-Sahara African countries and in Europe have been established widely.
• An Alumni network and Alumni activities have been established. In 2016, CDR took the lead in establishing joint Alumni activities of all African Excellence Centres and applied for DAAD funding of an Alumni conference on Tackling the root causes of displacement in Sub-Sahara Africa, which took place in November 2017 in South Africa. 40 Alumni (15 female, 25 male) representing 11 countries and 5 African Excellence Centres as well as staff members of CDR and partner centres took part. On the occasion of the Alumni conference a CDR Alumni took the initiative to establish an African Excellence Centre Alumni group. A working group of representatives of different African Excellence Centres has been established and has met at UWC in 2018 to register the Alumni association and further develop its concept. They will soon report on the latest developments.

Next Call for scholarship applications in 2019

There is no Call for scholarship applications in 2018, but we will publish a new Call in 2019 for both, Master and PhD Scholarships for the intake 2020.

Please have a regular look at the Website for further announcements!

Call for Applications - 2nd Alumni Conference of all DAAD Centres of African Excellence

The second Alumni Conference of the DAAD African Excellence Centres will take place in Accra, Ghana, from 6th - 9th November 2018.

The Call for applications with the deadline 6th July 2018 can be found here.