Re-thinking the work of African National Research and Education Networks through the lenses of the UN SDGs.

Disclaimer: This article was originally published on the AfricaConnect3 website.

Around 40 representatives of African NRENs, research centres and higher education institutions came together in Gaborone, Botswana on Thursday 24 November, 2022, to discuss how their respective organisations are contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

This workshop was part of a bigger initiative run by the AfricaConnect3 Communications team aimed at evidencing the concrete contributions that African NRENs are doing in support of the achievement of the Global Goals.

NRENs CEOs, and Presidents, Vice-Chancellors, and Professor of leading African universities took interest in highlighting the various activities run at their respective organisations and agreed on the importance of sharing with the rest of the world that the research and education networking community in Africa is making waves in the fields on quality education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5), economic development and job growth (SDG 8), innovation and infrastructure (SGD 9) and global partnerships (SDG 17), just to name a few!

In fact, NRENs and their member institutions play a critical role in the achievement of most of the Global Goals, whether it is via a direct contribution (a direct service provision) or an indirect one (the so-called multiplier effect).

The meeting saw the participants splitting in two groups and cover a different set of SDGs each to ensure that the highest number of examples was collected. The round table discussions brought up interesting points and challenged the attendees to think critically and strategically about their work and activities through the SDGs lenses.