Future Directions Next Generation of Partnerships for Africa's Post-COVID World

In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us around the globe reminisced about what 2019 was like and how we missed that world. We also talked about looking forward to life after COVID-19—to which countries we would travel, whom we would visit first, or what work we would pursue. We could hardly wait for the next year and that future. Many of us did not imagine that the COVID-19 pandemic would continue to wreak havoc on the world in 2021. In fact, for many in Africa, as you have read in many of the reflections, it feels like the wrath of COVID-19 has just begun. Moreover, in addition to the pandemic, many countries like the United States, have seen other major challenges, a racial reckoning like no other, climate change up close, and the fake news era clashing with democracy. The truth is that COVID-19 coupled with these other global challenges have provided the world with an opportunity to reset and innovate. COVID-19 has shown us just how much our world is interconnected and how much partnerships that span geography, discipline, and perspective are needed. The next generation of higher education partnerships will be the most consequential for how we move forward together and address the impact of these challenges for the future of Africa and the world.

The Impact of the Pandemic

The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected millions of Africans lives. The impact has transcended the health sector, affecting other areas such as agri-food systems, trade, tourism, and education. The ongoing challenges of the pandemic seem likely to cripple economies and the livelihoods of those across the African continent and around the world. Thus far, the general economic slowdown has seen an increased number of urban poor, small traders, small businesses, and unskilled laborers who are no longer earning a living. Limited market operations have resulted in low prices of agricultural produce in rural areas and enormous postharvest losses of fruits and vegetables. There is a need to look more closely at African food supply chains, which have been affected in a number of ways (Tschirley 2020). According to the Economic Commission for Africa, the pandemic will likely lead to economic recessions in a number of African countries with up to 30 million people pushed into extreme poverty (OECD 2020). It is also worrying that although men are more susceptible to the virus, it is women and vulnerable groups like the elderly and children who are more affected by the socioeconomic costs of the pandemic.

With scientists relentlessly working to innovate vaccines and preventative measures, there is reason to hope that long-lasting solutions will eventually come to light. However, this crisis has shown us that governments and institutions, including universities, must reexamine their approaches in the delivery of public goods. Many have come to appreciate the urgency of identifying innovative mechanisms to address the needs of their communities including providing accessible education. To meet this goal, new partnerships will need to be explored, more collaborative research for development will be necessary, and new methodologies in teaching will need to evolve.

The Alliance for African Partnership's member universities have been at the forefront of organizing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on education and the economies of various countries. This reflection documents some of the impact of COVID-19 on the education sector and the how new models of partnerships in higher education might not only help mitigate the impact, but also help transform the educational landscape in Africa.

COVID-19 and the Educational Sector

The most immediate impact was loss of learning time for many students. As cases began to rise, many countries ordered learning institutions to be closed down and learners sent back to their homes. Education advocates worried about the loss of time and of learning itself. If and when the learners were brought back to school, would they still have the knowledge they had before the pandemic? The critical issue is that the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in Africa's education systems, in particular with regard to ensuring equitable access to education for all. It has become evident that many African institutions lack adequate infrastructure to implement online learning programs. Even in cases where this infrastructure is available, instructors are not sufficiently trained in remote teaching practices. In addition, many students either do not have laptops or they have no data or bandwidth to access the lessons. To add to that, a lack of conducive home study environments has been an unforeseen challenge to remote learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic also exposed the fragility of international partnerships in higher education. Most university partnerships have revolved around capacity building for faculty, research collaboration, and student exchanges, and current models are heavily dependent on travel. With many countries imposing restrictions on travel, many partnership activities came to a halt. For example, five students from Malawi were supposed to enroll in master's programs at Michigan State University in August 2020 but they could not travel to Michigan due to the pandemic. Leaders of African higher education institutions are now suggesting that the bulk of training programs take place in Africa.

In light of the pandemic and the weaknesses it has revealed in universities, the focus has turned on the ability of African universities to provide knowledge to shape responses to the pandemic as well as the nature of partnerships for responsive learning and research. Questions are now being such as who sets the agenda for collaborative research between Southern and Northern institutions? Is this agenda responsive to the needs of African institutions and their countries? Do African universities have the resources they need to be responsive to crises such as a global pandemic?

AAP member universities have been at the forefront of leading innovations to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. For example, through practical innovations and analytical work several have facilitated national responses to food security. Leaders of institutions of higher education who took part in AAP-organized virtual dialogues, held between April and August 2020, shared the view that COVID-19's coming was an opportunity for transforming African higher education. Organizations like the AAP who are facilitating new models of partnership among African universities and those located in the Global North are now more critical than ever. It has become increasingly clear that African countries need locally generated knowledge in order to transform their societies and economies, and for many countries increased access to higher education and improved quality of teaching and research outputs remain top priorities. These priorities have long been the backbone of capacity-building efforts in the form of cooperation in teaching and research among African universities and universities in the Global North. The pandemic presents an opportunity to reflect on how current models of cooperation might be transformed for a post-COVID-19 world order.

The Case for Strengthening Partnerships in Institutions of Higher Learning

Strengthening partnerships among African and other institutions of higher learning should be a major priority as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt teaching, research, and community engagement. For many African higher learning institutions, COVID-19 has provided a window of opportunity for expanding online teaching programs. This could potentially open doors for hundreds of aspiring students who might otherwise not secure places at universities. This could also provide students with the flexibility of learning from home while caring for families or pursuing other livelihood ventures. However, critical challenges revolving around limited technological infrastructure and limited knowledge of the methodologies for designing online programs remain an obstacle. The uneven experiences of adapting to the new normal demand increased collaboration among universities as well as increased exchange of knowledge and technologies in order to leverage resources and innovate solutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also exposed the urgent need for investment in African research universities and institutions. In a 2020 article in University World News, Aryeetey et al. point to global inequalities in vaccine research, production, and distribution as evidence for this need. Countries in the Global North, such as the United States, Canada, and Britain, where the most widely produced vaccines were developed and produced have also secured enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations, in some cases multiple times over. On the other hand, estimates suggest that most low-income nations may only be able to vaccinate up to 20 percent of their populations in 2021, leaving many of the most vulnerable unprotected. Vaccine distribution has been complicated by global trade dynamics and intellectual property protections which limit production outside existing global centers of power. To address this massive health and equity crisis, Aryeetey et al. argue that "the strengthening of the research capacity at universities in low-income countries, especially in Africa, as a moral, economic and scientific imperative." They continue by asserting that, "supporting the development of strong research institutions in the Global South that operate on the knowledge frontier and are equipped to absorb and adopt new technology should be an absolute priority in North–South cooperation agreements."

In a presentation for an African Development Bank-hosted webinar on COVID-19's Disruption of Africa's Transformed Food Supply Chains, David Tschirley (2020) provided a similar case for strengthening research capacity at African universities. He has identified data and knowledge gaps "that need to be filled if African governments and the global community are to devise and execute an effective response to the pandemic." He goes on to argue, "A key point is that these data gaps can be filled through concerted joint action among researchers, African governments and public agencies, and bilateral and multilateral development partners. The emphasis here is on using data to generate better decision tools, meaning that data collection needs to be informed and driven by the needs of these model(ing)- based decision tools." With the right data, translated into useful tools for policy makers, universities can play a major role in mitigating the impact of this pandemic as well as be prepared to respond to future crises.

Northern academic and research institutions, now more than ever, must reach out to African partners to explore new ways of sustaining decades of cooperation and innovating new models to strengthen African research and education institutions. For example, what models of collaboration might institutions pursue that do not solely rely on African scholars and students traveling to pursue higher education and collaborative research outside the continent? In addition, many scholars from Northern institutions have built their careers on in-person field research in Africa. How do institutions support this research in environments where travel might be constrained? In particular, American institutions should see COVID-19 as an opportunity for building on more than six decades of historic partnerships with African institutions in teaching, learning, research, and outreach. These partnerships have for decades been informed by training hundreds of African scholars in institutions of higher learning across the United States. What new engagement models might be pursued to adapt to the changing global landscape?

New Models of Partnerships: What Will Be the Configuration of International Cooperation?

As a new body of knowledge emerges around COVID-19, the need for transdisciplinary research will grow, and so will the need for deepening international partnerships in research and teaching. Universities will need to begin conversations about what the aftermath of collaboration and partnerships will look like at institutional, country, continental, and global levels. Emerging consensus shows that post-COVID-19, North–South partnerships will need to be deepened and made more equitable with a focus on the needs of African institutions and countries. These partnerships will need to focus on achieving outcomes for the common good, rather than just chasing metrics through research and activities that only serve to push the rankings of Northern institutions. For example, institutions must chase cooperation on research for the cure for COVID-19, rather than a single-minded focus on academic publications for their own sake. If institutions pursue relevant "common good" research, publications will follow. In essence, these partnerships will need to consider the comparative advantages of each partner. For example, in the past, most cooperation has centered on training African students and faculty in Northern institutions, and Northern institutions have clearly demonstrated advantages in curricular design and delivery of instruction. In the post-COVID-19 era, the need to move towards a model of mutual benefit is more urgent than ever. This includes co-creation of curricula among Southern and Northern institutions. In the longer term, such cooperation would move towards more collaborative models that use both Northern and Southern complementary expertise while situating education on the African continent, e.g., programs with joint degrees awarded by Northern and Southern institutions that maximize learning through international and intercultural experiences.

In the post-COVID-19 world, the focus of higher education must be on relevance and impact. Northern institutions will need to rethink how they reward excellence and how they are ranked to ensure that teaching and research that addresses global challenges, including pandemics like this one, are recognized and rewarded. This conversation has already started. As an example, the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings has started a ranking system for how best university programs address the United Nation's sustainable development goals (SDGs). SDGs 1–4 speak directly to how the work of universities can help reduce poverty, end hunger, promote good health and well-being, and ensure quality education for all. Teaching should be focused on building strong democratic societies and expanding opportunities for all, whereas research must be geared towards transforming lives.

There is also the need to promote Africa-to-Africa partnerships. African universities and research networks need to come together around common research agendas based on shared needs. The pandemic has shown how African economies are heavily dependent on outside help for even for the most basic yet essential materials that the local communities need or indeed that their nations might need—from toothpicks to steel. In the current COVID-19 environment, it is unacceptable for African nations to import thousands of tons of musk from outside their countries. Musk production by local African communities is an obvious opportunity for local manufacturers or community tailors to generate new economic opportunities. Universities in Africa should ideally lead the effort to stimulate local small-scale manufacturing capacities that support preventive measures of COVID-19 and other contagious diseases. Collaboration among African universities and research networks will go a long way to finding basic yet innovative solutions by building local capacities to deal with this and future challenges.

In order to nurture and grow new models of partnerships, the buy-in and support of both African and Northern institutions' leadership will be key. Leaders both in Africa and in the Global North at the level of vice chancellors, presidents, rectors, or provosts need to see this as their natural pathway for their institution's growth in the post-COVID-19 era. Equally critical is the need to ensure buy-in from senior faculty and from students. We all must work together to build a shared understanding of the potential of such partnership to lead to mutually beneficial outcomes.