Ashesi’s Dedicated Courses to Sustainability and SDGs

Ashesi University takes climate change and sustainable development education (CCSE) seriously and has established knowledge and support structures that effectively align its programs with CCSE. The university offers about one hundred and forty courses collectively in Business Administration, Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Engineering. Ashesi has integrated climate change and sustainability education in all its core courses and some of its elective courses into individual sessions of courses or modules. Ashesi believes that such a curriculum at the end of four years will cultivate a healthy climate literacy habit of mind in its students. Ashesi University has also created specific climate change modules as elective courses. See Table 1 for an example of such a course

Table 1

Ashesi Climate Change Related Elective Course Modules

Ashesi also models living a sustainable life as part of its indirect or invisible curriculum in using solar panels (SDG 7), harvesting rainwater (SDG 15), reusing wastewater, and creating boreholes for water (SDG 6), to name a few.

 

At Ashesi, we teach courses that reflect the SDGs, e.g., SDG 11 – Introduction to AI, which falls under SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities – AI supports intelligent city initiatives, resource management, and urban planning, making cities more sustainable and liveable. Other courses include the Leadership Seminars SDG 16, Women Writing Africa: Gender in African Literature and Films SDG 5, and Introduction to Micro and Macro Economics SDG 1, 2 & 3.

Learning about the SDGs through Community Life’s Experiences

There are several ways to engage the displaced and refugee community with the SDGs, including being taught the SDGs, being educated so ones SDG situation improves, or engaging in certain activities which make one want to appreciate the benefits of an SDG(s).

According to political analysts, there are over 4 million refugees living in over 300 refugee camps across Africa. Ashesi recognizes that to make an impact it should focus on only 3-5 refugee camps, which include Kakuma in northern Kenya, Nyarugusu in western Tanzania and Bidibidi in north-western Uganda.

Ashesi also believes that the responsibility should not be borne by only one department and so organically, at Ashesi, Board members, the Admissions team, students, and faculty each play varying roles in relation to the SDGs and refugees. The Admissions team travel to remote select refugee camps in different African countries to recruit through educating on what a quality education (SDG 4) could look like and to offer scholarships (SDG 1) to brilliant refugee students. Board members donate their funds and help set up foundations (SDG 1) to support the engagement and conferences which educate the greater university community in Africa about refugee needs and possibilities in higher education. See here and here.

Academic Affairs through its membership in the Open Society Universities Network consistently offers to hire faculty in refugee situations to teach at Ashesi, offering their families a better life because of the employment. Ashesi strives to implement the SDGs by modeling them and providing others with SDG lived and sustainable experiences.

International Collaboration and Research for a Better Africa

Ashesi University as part of its international collaborations often engages in global-level  research to explore different but comparable approaches for developing Africa, which inevitably addresses an SDG. Examples include its collaboration with the University of Toronto, MasterCard Foundation, and McGill University, to name a few.

Ashesi’s membership in a cluster of research and academic institutions in West Africa (Catholic University of West Africa in Bobo-Dioulasso Burkina Faso, LASDEL in Niamey Niger, Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS) and UK (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)), is co-led by LSHTM and GCPS, and forms a center, the “NIHR Global Health Research Center for NCD Control in West Africa”.

The Centre operates using the acronym STOP NCD and was funded by NIHR, the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

Research Background

West Africa faces a rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as hypertension, diabetes, and co-existing mental health disorders (stress, anxiety, and depression). Disease control priorities have been traditionally driven by the burden of communicable diseases, such as malaria. The region has been slowly responding to the increasing NCD burden, and most interventions addressed individual diseases rather than focus holistically on people. There is an urgent need for capacity to conduct high-quality research to inform effective, evidence-based and people-centered approaches to NCD control, adapted to West African settings.

We aim to:

  • Improve health and wellbeing of populations in West Africa by developing capacity for high-quality research to inform improved prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of inter-connected NCDs (hypertension, diabetes and co-existing stress, anxiety, and depression).

To do this we will:

  • Work in three West African countries (Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Niger) with varying ethnic-socio-cultural-economic environments to develop, implement and evaluate ways of improving control of hypertension, diabetes and related stress, anxiety, and depression.
  • We will start by analyzing roles of key stakeholders (patients and communities, health workers, managers, policymakers) in the development, provision, and use of NCD policies, programmes, and services in each country, using appropriate methods such as analysis of available data, observations, and interviews.
  • Working closely with those stakeholders, we will co-produce packages of interventions for improving NCD control. This package will include adapting international guidelines to local contexts and supporting healthcare workers in implementing these, and establishing a community-based prevention, early-detection, and management of NCDs.
  • We will implement and rigorously evaluate the interventions packages for their costs and effectiveness, assess their potential for wide-scale application, and will identify transferable lessons for improving NCD control beyond these three countries.

Throughout these steps, we will:

  • strengthen individual skills and expertise, organisational systems and processes and system-wide networking capabilities and leadership of researchers (to conduct high-quality research), local communities (to engage with, and understand, how to enable healthy lifestyles) and policymakers and practitioners (to implement evidence-based NCD interventions).
  • engage with key stakeholders (patients, health workers, managers) for consulting on their views, preferences, and expectations, sharing results as they emerge and facilitating uptake of research results into their decisions and practices.
  • maintain equitable international partnerships, through shared leadership involving both senior and earlier-career staff, and equally distributed management responsibilities.

Promoting the findings

Networking, prolonged engagements with, and deep understanding of, local communities and other stakeholders (for example, health workers, policymakers) will help promote research dissemination, communication, and uptake. This will include understanding stakeholder perspectives and proactively involving them in co-production, implementation and evaluation of interventions packages.

We will share research results with different audiences, through easy-to-understand leaflets, briefs, audio-visual materials, adapted guidelines, policy dialogues, academic publications, and conference presentations.

The Centre will work with policy practice and CSO partners including representation from persons living with NCD to ensure the applied relevance of the research and capacity building.

Divestment Policy

Ashesi University’s stance on divestment can be found on two of its websites which are dedicated to fund raising and interfacing with thousands of individuals across the world interested in Ashesi. The two websites are Ashesi University Foundation (AUF) and Ashesi University Foundation Canada (AUFC).

On Ashesi’s foundation website in Canada, https://www.ashesi.ca/faqs/, under the section frequently asked questions, and specifically the question “How is the Ashesi Foundation Canada’s endowment managed?” the response highlights our divestment standing as follows:

Ashesi Foundation Canada’s Board and Investment Committee oversee the management of all its operations and endowments. The Foundation’s endowments are managed by Commonfund.  The Ashesi University Foundation Canada (AUFC), was established in 2023 and so its policy is relatively new needing little to no revisions. It states-

No portion of the Fund is invested directly in companies or concerns that are engaged in the following industries:
a) Manufacture or sale of tobacco products; or
b) Manufacture or sale of firearms or weapons

And on our second foundation website,  the Ashesi University Foundation (AUF) it is a response to the question “Does Ashesi invest in the manufacture of tobacco or weapons?” of its FAQ section. There you will find Ashesi’s reiteration of its stand

At this link https://www.ashesi.org/frequently-asked-questions-giving/

No portion of Ashesi’s endowment is invested directly in companies or concerns that are engaged in the following industries:
a) Manufacture or sale of tobacco products; or
b) Manufacture or sale of firearms or weapons

Ashesi Programs for Students’ Success

With a diverse body of students comprised of approximately 50% women, over 40% needs-based scholars (bottom two to three financial deciles), from over 25 African countries, Ashesi strives to find many different ways to meet students’ needs. Recently, Ashesi welcomed a few refugees, and students with disabilities, or internally displaced students. To contribute and support students’ degree completion success, Ashesi University offers several scaffolding programs and initiatives. Programs offered may be curricular or extracurricular, required, or optional, and they are too many to name. A few include the Ashesi Success course, Peer Tutoring, Office hours, Weekly Discussions or Labs with Teaching Assistants (Faculty Interns) the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Summer Leadership Program, Host Families Program, Mentoring, Academic Advising, Tutoring, International Freshman Mid-Semester Seminar, Career Services, Counselling, and Life Coaches.

Ashesi Success is a required non-graded course for first-year students designed by the Office of Community and Student Affairs’ counselors and the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences to help students effectively transition to a community of independent learners. Students learn time management practices, ways to voice their values, growth mindset philosophies, the science of learning, and other academic empowering skills.Learn More

For the MasterCard Foundation Scholars, specifically, there are programs like the Arizona State University 3 + 1 + 1 Master’s program, the Ghana Scholars Convening, and the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Summer Leadership Program. At the start of the Ashesi degree program, MasterCard Foundation Scholars undergo personal development and leadership skill-building in a Summer Leadership Program to assist with the transition to Ashesi’s learning culture. The program includes cohort-building exercises, awareness of acceptable social norms, and life skills such as swimming.

In their second year, we orient MasterCard Foundation Scholars on the possibility of finishing both their first degree and a master’s in an accelerated 5-year program. As part of the ASU 3+1+1 or a 4 + 1 program, eligible only to MasterCard Foundation Scholars, students who plan to apply may opt to complete most of their undergraduate courses by the third year. If selected, they complete their fourth year with Ashesi in Arizona while concurrently beginning the accelerated master’s degree. The program gives a graduate school opportunity to those who otherwise may not have had a chance to earn a master’s after their first degree. It does so in the shortest possible time to enable graduands a quick turnaround time to give back to family and community promptly. The program motivates most MasterCard Foundation scholars to persist in their undergraduate work.Learn More

Additionally, MasterCard Foundation Scholars also participate in the annual Ghana Scholars Convening, where other MasterCard Foundation scholars in Ghana meet to focus on entrepreneurship possibilities and networking now and in the future.

Most international programming has components specific to the MasterCard Foundation Scholars, as more than 90% of the international students are MasterCard Foundation Scholars. An example is International Freshman Mid-Semester Seminar, which is mandatory for all international freshmen. We determine whether they are adjusting appropriately to their new academic and social environment, referred to as the Ashesi Experience. The seminar engages students in many forms to give them the platform to share what is working (and what is not) and explore how they can re-strategize to ensure that they succeed academically and socially.

Female mentoring occurs at many levels at Ashesi. In the engineering department, Dr. Elena Rosca leads a Women in Tech group for women in science to have guidance on the challenges they face in the non-female-dominated space. Career Services at Ashesi also matches students who choose to be mentees with mentors, with special care and attention to female student needs.

Again, there are several initiatives and programs designed to cultivate student success at Ashesi. The sample of programs detailed for mitigating the needs of female, students in the lower financial deciles, and pan-African students are vital because they contribute to Ashesi student success.

Fathering, Mothering and Childcare at Ashesi

At Ashesi, the University community comprises 42% women on the staff team; 50% women on the Executive Team; 55% women on the Board of Directors; 47% women in the student body and 53% of students on scholarships being women. With such a great proportion of women at Ashesi, it is no wonder there are several considerations for women and families which are rarely practised in many organisations. Per our policy, Ashesi encourages family/work balance and therefore does not discriminate against its employees because of their family obligations. To the maximum extent possible, the University will seek to support full-time faculty members who become parents as they welcome new children into their families, whether by birth or adoption, by providing them with time off or flexible time as the case may be, continuity of entitled benefits, and opportunities for relief from their teaching duties

For the University to effectively plan, a faculty member who is pregnant or whose wife is pregnant must inform her/his Head of Department/Provost/Director of Human Resources by the end of the third month of the pregnancy for the necessary discussions and arrangements on either a reduction in teaching load, temporary absence, or replacement with another full time or temporary/adjunct lecturer, etc. to be made. A pregnant female faculty member shall be entitled to maternity leave of twelve (12) weeks from the date of delivery. The period of maternity leave may be extended for two additional weeks when recommended by a medical officer or approved by the Executive Committee as extenuating circumstances. Any period of absence from work due to the pregnancy which is duly certified by a medical practitioner shall not be treated as part of her maternity leave. A male faculty member, on presentation of a medical certificate issued by a medical practitioner indicating the expected date of his wife’s delivery, shall be entitled to paternity leave of four (4) weeks from the date of delivery (Employee Guidelines, Section 10.6.1)

On resumption of duty, a nursing mother (a breast-feeding mother) is entitled to interrupt her work during her working hours to nurse her baby or express milk for her baby. Nursing mothers who are teaching may request a teaching schedule conducive for this, at least four weeks before the start of the semester. One space designated on campus for nursing mothers is a 1-bedroom apartment recently named ‘Mother’s Lounge’. A nanny or a family member is also welcome in the Mother’s Lounge to take care of a baby during working hours. Additionally, it is not unusual to see a bassinette with a baby next to a nursing mother’s desk as she works. Should a student need the services of the Mother’s Lounge, that can be arranged.

Figure 1.
Ashesi’s Mothers’ Lounge

Figure 2.
Ashesi’s Mothers’ Lounge

Female students who become parents by birth are afforded the option of taking time-off from school or taking advantage of joining their classes online from home. The female student on resumption of in-person learning does not face any disruption with her course of study if she opted for taking time-off, and continues seamlessly if she opted for the online continuous learning. With the assistance of the academic advisor, the student may reconfigure her program of study, if necessary. If she had a scholarship award that had to be put on hold, arrangements would be made to reinstate, without penalty on her resumption of classes.

Financial Assistance for Ashesi’s Healthcare Start-ups

The Ashesi Health & Care Initiative Incubator (AHCI2) provides funding up to $20,000.00 per venture for early stage, growth stage and ventures looking to scale. In December 2023, AHCI2 onboarded 45 ventures as part of its first cohort of a MasterCard Foundation grant. The focus is on Health Entrepreneurship, Health Employment and Health Ecosystems. See here profiles of all ventures in the AHCI2 cohort 1. Ventures receive training and mentorship in business principles, financial modeling, legal and regulatory support, ethics and ideation. Read more about the AHCI2 on the Africa Health Collaborative website here.

Provision of Assistance to Low Carbon Technology Start-ups

Ashesi University’s institute, the Ghana Climate Innovation Center (GCIC), assists start-ups that foster and support low carbon economy and technology.

Over the past three years, GCIC’s green engagement with entrepreneurs has enabled them to support 196 ventures, disbursed as grants in support of businesses $2.9 million, helped the businesses cumulatively gain $8.5 million, and helped the businesses avoid 624,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

Examples of start-ups that have benefitted from the center include:

Green-Heat Technologies

Green-Heat Technologies is a registered LLC currently based in Kokrobite, Accra. The business aims to use its briquetting technology to recycle agricultural wastes, including dried coconut shells, palm kernel shells, charcoal dust, and sawdust, into charcoal briquettes under the brand OGYA. They aim to develop a broader range of product lines, such as char briquettes, fire litter, and grill equipment. Green-Heat aims to curb carbon emissions and deforestation to help Ghana reclaim its lost vegetation.

Sustainable Energy Technologies Limited (SETECH)

Sustainable Technologies Limited (STL) is a social enterprise committed to developing and promoting climate-smart, innovative, and environmentally friendly technological solutions that improve the well-being of households and communities as well as enhance the efficiency of smallholder agro-enterprises in Ghana and Africa to meet their energy and environmental challenges. STL also develops inclusive business and marketing models that reduce energy expenditure, deforestation, and indoor air pollution by promoting climate smart technologies.

Local Community Programs on Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy

An institute of Ashesi University, The Ghana Climate Innovation Center, provides green programs for the local communities across all 16 of Ghana’s regions and strongly fosters female participation. Some programs are direct training, while some heighten awareness and indirectly educate.

The programs include a:

  • Business Incubation Program
  • Women Entrepreneurs’ Transformation Program (WETP)
  • Policy Alternatives for a Green Economy (PAGE – Ghana)
  • STAGE Story Telling

The Business Incubation Program is a cutting-edge business incubator of the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) that supports transformative entrepreneurs with innovative solutions and businesses that aid in mitigating or adapting climate change.

Women Entrepreneurs Transformation Program (WETP) has been designed to respond to the need for gender-sensitive business advisory services and amplify women’s voices and agency in the business sector.

Through PAGE-Ghana, our policy advocacy work unit, GCIC strives to influence the acceleration of government decision-making for policies that give room for a climate-resilient society driven by innovation, low carbon solutions, ‘carbon budgets,’ and policy plans to meet carbon budgets.

GCIC’s strategic communications are implemented through STAGE Story Telling, i.e., Strategic Communications and Story Telling for a Green Economy. Overall, STAGE Story Telling focuses on knowledge sharing for a green, low-carbon economy, thought leadership for a green carbon economy, ensuring gender diversity and inclusion, advocacy, and behavioral change.

 

Ashesi’s Initiation & Participation in Cross-Sectoral Dialogue Pertaining to SDGs

Ashesi regularly initiates dialogue through symposia on matters that align with the SDGs. In June 2023, an institute of Ashesi University, the Ghana Climate Innovation Center (GCIC), held a symposium that addressed issues concerning decent work (SDG 8), building sustainable cities and resilient infrastructure systems through better urban development (SDG 9 and 11),  and adoption of an integrated approach to agriculture and environmental management (SDG 12).

The emphasis of the symposium was on climate-smart living (SDG 13). The discourse included thoughts on boosting disaster risk preparedness through early warning systems, better national financial preparedness against climate shocks, and adaptive health and social protection systems. They also discussed ways to manage forest resources as an asset for climate resilience and the probable processes to transition to clean energy by scaling up renewable energy sources and strengthening regional markets.

Using two panels consisting of government officials, NGO leads, lawyers, economists, etc., the sessions and focus were as follows:

Panel Discussion 1: Policy for a Green Economy: Strengthening governance mechanisms, policy incentives, and legal frameworks to address climate change and foster greener, more sustainable economic development.

  • Naa Atswei Koney ESQ., Sustainability/ESG Lawyer and Strategist, Deloitte & Touche
  • Cynthia Quarcoo, Founder & Managing Partner, CQ Legal & Consulting
  • Aurelien Kruse, Lead Country Economist, World Bank
  • Stephen Armah, Deputy Chief Manager, Banking Supervision Department, Bank of Ghana

Panel Discussion 2: Can current financial models, financial product development, and impact investment models build Ghana’s robust low-carbon economy?

  • Mirabelle Moreaux, Partner, Injaro Investments
  • Yaw Afriyie, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre
  • Hamdiyah Ismaila, General Manager, Ghana Venture Capital
  • Valerie Labi, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, MANA Mobility

Learn more here

Ashesi also participates annually in global cross-sectoral dialogue through its membership in associations such as the U7+ Alliance, the Africa Health Collaborative, and the Education Collaborative, to name a few.

During Ashesi’s participation in the 2023  U7+ Alliance summit, the U7+ university presidents unanimously adopted the U7+ Tokyo Statement: Universities as Engines of Innovation for Peace and Security, which members of the U7+ Presidential Steering Committee presented to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The U7+ commitments are outlined under six principles of climate change and cleaner energy, Inequality, polarised societies, technological transformations, and community engagement and impact. The U7+ Alliance strives to serve as the academic equivalent of the G7+, adopting SDG-like commitments to be presented to the G7 president every year in hopes of influencing policy and change.

In 2023, the Africa Health Collaborative, where Ashesi serves as one of the nine university partners, convened in South Africa at the University of Cape Town

The theme at the convening was Our Health, Our Wealth in Africa for Africa (SDG 3), which had a keynote entitled and focused on Tomorrow’s Health: Youth Employment and Social Innovation in African Health Systems (SDG 8 & 9).

The objectives of the convening were to:

  • Develop a community-building platform to amplify the Health Collaborative’s impact.
  • Develop a platform for sustained engagement with youth, Health Collaborative partners, and health ecosystem stakeholders.
  • Invite and integrate youth voices in all aspects of programming, including a dedicated youth track and youth-led sessions.
  • Raise awareness about the Health Collaborative’s initiatives and priorities.
  • Facilitate knowledge exchange, utilization, and collective learning, focusing on shared challenges and innovations to address these.

The Africa Health Collaborative is in its nascent stages, and during the October 2023 convening, it worked at establishing a solid foundation for working as a network to improve health in Africa (SDG 3). Powered by the MasterCard Foundation within the decade, it is hoped that by 2030-2032, the impact of this collaborative will be evident in the communities of the African University partners.

The Carbon Emission Reduction Actions at Ashesi University

Ashesi has several processes to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. These include a consistent maintenance culture to minimize GHG and black carbon emissions from on-site diesel-fired generators. The on-site generators supplement inadequate national grid power supply and power outages/blackouts/blownout, contributing to GHG emissions per capita. The GHG emission reduction actions include regular preventative maintenance (pm) to optimize the generation efficiency, reduce fuel consumption, and avoid visible smoke particulate and black carbon emissions.

See evidence of this in the Ashesi Climate Risk Management (CRM) report, 2019 Section 5.1.

A second process is the substitution of Grid electricity with renewable energy (Solar PVe and Solar Water Heaters). Ashesi’s strategic plan to transition to net-zero intends to increase the penetration of RE to 60 percent of total electricity consumption by 2030. Solar PVe accounts for 13-15% of total grid electricity consumption. In 2022/23, the substituted grid Electricity amounted to 276,325 kWh. Ashesi achieved carbon emission reduction of about 110 tons of CO2 based on a national grid emission factor of 0.40 tonne per MWh.

See evidence of this in the Ashesi report of electricity consumption by Sources and see the Figure below

At Ashesi, we also practice minimizing leakage to reduce HFC-R410 refrigerant emissions from Air-conditioning. The installed AC equipment is the Daikin Brand, made in Belgium which has that feature. Ashesi has a maintenance contract with the installer that complies with the recommended Preventative Maintenance (PM). The PM emphasizes leakage detection to avoid emissions into the atmosphere.

See evidence Ashesi Climate Risk Management (CRM) report, 2019 Section 5.1.

Ashesi is also piloting energy efficiency improvement projects in stationary air-conditioning under the Kigali Accord cooling Efficiency. The project achieves 50-58% reduction in AC amperage (amp) and 30-35% real-time electricity savings. The project replaces a high GWP refrigerant R410A with a low GWP project refrigerant with high compression efficiency. The project reduces greenhouse gas emissions from substituting higher GWP refrigerant, avoids actual leakage, and saves in the carbon content of the grid electricity.

Evidence is found in the IFC/WB Annual Monitoring Report (AMR), 2022, Section 6.2.5 pg. 45.

Conversations with Government about Clean Energy

Ashesi, through its institute, the “Ghana Climate Innovation Center” can write a minimum of 6 policy briefs a year on climate and sustainability, particularly:

  • Climate-Smart Agriculture
  • Energy Efficiency
  • Solar Power
  • Water Management
  • Domestic Waste Management.

A few examples of policy briefs written collaboratively by GCIC and Ashesi teams are listed below. They are shared and discussed regularly with government teams during symposia and roundtable discussions with the intent of informing government policy:

One such sharing opportunity was this year’s 5th annual Incubating Climate Innovation symposium, which has been structured to engage policymakers, donors, financial institutions, and climate entrepreneurs, especially on the issues of green finance, sustainable finance, and policy underpinnings.  Through keynote deliveries, panels, and Q&A sessions, our practiced invited speakers will offer their unique perspectives and insights through discussions and deliberations that will focus on critical issues on:

  • Fostering sustainable, resilient, and green economic growth in Ghana: exploring the macroeconomic variables to shape our future.
  • Policy for a Green Economy: Strengthening governance mechanisms, policy incentives, and legal frameworks to address climate change and promote greener, more sustainable economic development.
  • Sustainable Finance: Emphasizing the creation of long-term economic and societal value through sustainable investment, banking, and lending practices.
  • Exploring the potential of current financial models, product development, and impact investment models in building a robust low-carbon economy in Ghana. \
  • #IncubatingClimateInnovation2023 also aimed to foster widespread engagement by leveraging the media community and focused public relations efforts.
  • See a video here on the Incubating Climate Innovation Symposium.