he ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) funded by USAID is a partnership of 20 African universities in 16 countries. It is led by Makerere University with Tulane University’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy, Stanford University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as partners. RAN is one of seven development labs under the Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN) in the office of Science and Technology (OST), USAID. The RAN program is led by Prof. William Bazeyo (Makerere University, Uganda) the HESN Development Lab Director for RAN.
RAN will strengthen the resilience of communities by nurturing and scaling innovations from the different universities. It will apply science and technology to strengthen the resilience of African communities against natural and man-made stresses. Its objectives are to:
- Design and operationalize a scientific, data-driven and evidence-based resilience framework for Sub-Saharan Africa that builds on the resources already engaged through the RAN.
- Strengthen resilience at the individual, household and community levels through innovative technologies and approaches to development, which will be identified, incubated, tested and scaled through the RAN, in collaboration with its partners.
- Enhance resilience-related knowledge and share it globally, engaging students, faculty, staff, and development experts from around the world to collaborate on solving resilience related problems.
Development and humanitarian aid have been historically addressed on a project-by-project basis within different sectors including health, education, and agriculture among others. Although these efforts have saved lives and met immediate program objectives, they have not increased the capacity of affected populations to withstand future shocks and stresses.
RAN will hence adopt a resilience based approach to programming that provides a framework for analyzing resilience and enables people to discover how to be more resilient to shocks and stresses.
To achieve this, RAN will engage a wide network of students and faculty members in improving well-being though generating local innovative solutions to specific development challenges in African communities.
Source: http://www.ranlab.org/
