In retrospect, 2016 will probably turn out to be a critical
year for IOB’s internationalisation strategy. As explained
in last year’s annual report, we have opted for the globali-
sation of our education, research and societal outreach
activities by partnering with priority Southern academic
organisations in long-term structural cooperation. The
shift from the Southern-oriented MDGs towards glob-
al SDGs in the face of the global challenges of poverty,
inequality and unsustainable maldevelopment, shows the
importance of constructing platforms of joint knowledge
creation and exchange. Long-term mutual engagement as
a development studies institute creates unique oppor-
tunities to contribute to interconnected global networks
for joint research and training. IOB has a long tradition in
terms of joint research, the training of local academics in
Antwerp (Masters, PhDs) and support for local education-
al programmes, but it is a relatively new idea to globalise
its Master programmes, i.e. to co-organise modules of its
programmes in different regional hubs (see box page 30).
Bukavu
In 2016, the Catholic University of Bukavu (UCB), which
has been our VLIR partner in an institutional cooperation
project (IUS) coordinated by KU Leuven since 2010,
hosted a series of activities that highlighted its key role
as a significant partner in the Gr eat Lakes Region. Firstly,
research continued in the Expertise Centre on Mining
Governance (CEGEMI). This resulted in seven publications
in international peer-reviewed journals and four working
papers. Four Congolese PhD students (Janvier Kilosho,
Paterne Murhula, Francine Iragi and Bossissi Nkuba) are
pursuing their research on mining-related issues such as
the linkages between mining and agriculture and mercury
pollution. CEGEMI also undertook consultancy for COWI/
World Bank and IKV/Pax Christi. Secondly, the University
Foundation for Development Cooperation (USOS)
organised its first trip to Bukavu, with eight students
and two UAntwerp staff members spending almost
three weeks with host families – selected by the UCB –
in Bukavu, and taking a ten-day trip to the countryside
(around Uvira), where they visited several development
projects. USOS financed this field trip, as well as a series
of seminars on academic publishing in English. These
were attended by ten UCB staff members, who were then
associated with an IOB researcher, with a view to working
on a joint publication. Thirdly, the biggest academic
event organised in Bukavu in 2016 was the international
conference on ‘Transition and Local Development’, which
brought together more than 150 participants based at
Northern as well as Southern universities and research
institutes. While the initiative for this conference was
taken by Prof. Marijke Verpoorten, it grew into a large
joint project between IOB, Wageningen University and
Research, New York University Abu Dhabi, the Peace
Research Institute Oslo and their respective partners
in Eastern DRC. The conference was evaluated very
positively and was covered by a range of Congolese media.
It created opportunities for networking and outreach,
and laid the foundation for more joint efforts and region-
based events in the future. Finally, we must highlight
the synergies between all these initiatives. CEGEMI was
involved in the conference organisation and a considerable
number of presentations dealt with natural or mineral
resource management. As the ‘Going Global’ initiative
unfolds, with USOS strengthening its partnership with
the UCB, the VLIR-IUS project entering its third phase,
CEGEMI further consolidating its position as expertise
centre, and IOB committed to organising more events in
the region, these synergies will only be reinforced in the
near future.
Nicaragua
The main activities of the partnership in Nicaragua
during 2016 were related to the preparation of the Central
American version of our three Master’s programmes and,
in particular, the consolidation of their articulation within
an integrated strategy of upgrading academic research
at our partner university UCA, which also involves an
attempt at coordination of international cooperation
with the Jesuit universities in El Salvador and Guatemala
and other US and Spanish partner universities of UCA.
Viewed from the perspective of the IOB, the objective of
our globalised Master’s is to open up our programmes
for Central American development perspectives. The
intention is to provide opportunities for excellent local
academic researcher-lecturers to teach in an Advanced
Master’s programme, linked to their research agenda
in the region, and in this way train and initiate young
Central American academics in relation to research in
general and their thematic research lines in particular.
Together with enhanced conditions and incentives for
research, this aims to strengthen a collaborative regional
and international framework that contributes to Central
American ‘Pensamiento Propio’ (Own Thinking). By
October 2019, we aim to be ready to launch the first
Central American version of our programmes. This means
organising the first module, which will be common to the
three Master’s in Managua; bringing the Central American
students to Antwerp for the second module; and then
organising the ‘Local Institutions and Poverty Reduction’
track – with thematic units covering the specificities of our
three Master’s – and the fourth (dissertation) module in
Managua.
Related to these efforts, we have also organised a first
pilot version of the Mobility Window, which is a new
course offered in Antwerp. This course gives students the
opportunity to undertake a six-week research internship
at a partner institute as an alternative to the course in
research methods. In November-December 2016, two
IOB students went to Nicaragua to work on quantitative
analysis of a survey base with data on a project to
ANNUAL REPORT 2016 • 29