Wits-TUB-UNILAG 2021 Urban Lab Scholarships for Sub-Saharan African Students

The Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab Programme is built on a partnership agreement between the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB).  This collaboration seeks to contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2015 and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) of 2016 on the sub-Saharan African continent. The New Urban Agenda (NUA) in particular calls for integrated approaches to urban planning and management as a central element of an “Urban Paradigm Shift”.  It recognises the need for institutional capacity development as an important “enabling condition”. The Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab makes its contribution through a ‘Postgraduate SDG School’, in the form of an enhancement of the postgraduate training offered in the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits (a leading university on this continent) in close collaboration with the Habitat Unit at TUB and Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development at UNILAG. The programme enables scholars from across the sub-continent to partake in the Master of Urban Studies in the field of Urban Management at Wits as well as PhD studies at both Wits and UNILAG. A new masters degree in urban management will be introduced at UNILAG in 2021 with bursary support from the programme. Beyond collaboration around the respective urban management masters at TUB, Wits and UNILAG, the programme is designed to facilitate international exchange of ideas between research institutions and includes strengthening the network of urban academics on the African continent. The Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab programme is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from 2016 to 2020. An extension of the programme has been granted from 2021 to 2025.