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SDSN Afghanistan's Universities SDG Working Group

By Dorothea Strueber

SDSN Afghanistan host Kateb University participated in the 5th meeting of the executive committee for the year 2019 on September 3, 2019 and presented the specific outcomes the conference related to “Role of Universities in attaining the SDGs in Afghanistan”. Further, Kateb University proposed that the universities’ working groups should be established to help the government of Afghanistan and SDGs’ stakeholders in better implementation of the SDGs. The committee members approved the proposal and assigned Kateb University to work on the Working Group ToR and take the lead of the working group for the year 2020.

Objectives

As per the conference outcomes and the SDSN Guide for University to get started with SDGs, the working group 5 will work to pursue the following objectives:

  1. Promote and clarify the SDGs' concept and importance of SDGs among Afghan universities;
  2. Support the private and public universities to play an active role as solution provider for A-SDGs;
  3. Help universities to take active part in achieving the SDG 4 in Afghanistan;
  4. Act as a think tank body for executive committee of A-SDGs and its already active working groups;
  5. Advocate and coordinate to provide technical, financial and political assistance for programs initiatives and decisions of the working group;
  6. Facilitate and support the universities to provide R&D services for government of Afghanistan, development agencies and private sector.

Scope of Work

According to the SDSN Guide for Universities, universities can contribute to the implementation of the SDGs in four specific areas. Below are the specific areas, which the SDGs working group 5 will focus on to help SDGs stakeholders better implement the SDGs:

Education (Teaching and Learning)

  1. Facilitate programs for the MoHE to enhance the physical and technical capacity of Afghanistan higher education to support access to quality higher education;
  2. Help universities to integrate the SDGs in their curriculum;
  3. Support universities to enhance their capacity to offer new degrees for Afghanistan sustainable development in bachelor, master, and Ph.D. levels.
  4. Help universities to enhance their capacity to offer executive education on sustainable development for current and future SDGs practitioners;
  5. Help the universities to innovate and improve the Afghanistan Higher Education System to support employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship as per need of Afghanistan;
  6. Support the culture of well-being in Afghan Universities;
  7. Work with universities to provide students with the skills, knowledge and motivations to understand and address the challenges the of A-SDGs implementation process.

Research and Development

  1. Support programs for universities for localization of the SDGs resources (Translation of SDGs Meta Data in Dari and Pashto);
  2. Work with universities to provide guidelines for different sectors;
  3. Support the programs among universities to align their students masters and bachelor’s thesis with A-SDGs;
  4. Provide support for universities to play a lead role in knowledge creations, evidence based solutions for A-SDGS;
  5. Encourage universities to play leading role in policy research on A-SDGs;
  6. Support universities to provide monitoring and evaluation services for A-SDGs;
  7. Encourage universities to provide applied research on A-SDGs;
  8. Help universities to build/create data center for A-SDGs;
  9. Help universities to work on research modeling, program development, research analysis of A-SDGs;
  10. Work with universities to play a lead role on economic modeling;
  11. Encourage universities to align the researches of their faculty members with A-SDGs;
  12. Mobilize synergies with universities to support and incubate innovation for Sustainable Development Solutions.

External Leadership

  1. Help universities to organize cross sectoral dialogues, conferences and symposiums;
  2. Work with universities to promote the SDGs knowledge among the students and lecturers;
  3. Support universities to strengthen public engagement and participation in addressing the SDGs;
  4. Work with universities to demonstrate university sectors’ commitment toward the implementation the SDG;
  5. Help universities to play a leading role in policy development and advocacy for sustainable development;
  6. Encourage universities to play leading role to facilitate strategic partnership among different sectors to support A-SDGs;
  7. Facilitate programs through universities to build strategic partnerships and international cooperation on access to science and technology to support A-SDGs.

Operation and Governance

  1. Work with universities to establish sustainable development center to lead and integrate the SDGs with in their operations;
  2. Support universities to align their strategic plan, policies and procedure based on SDGs indicators.

Policy Analysis and Need Assessment (Higher Education Policy)

  1. Provide advocacy and support for access to quality higher education through policy analysis and policy recommendation.
  2. Provide consultations to develop national strategic plan on role of universities in achieving the SDGs