Successful work in Rwanda and Ethiopia continues

Higher education is seen as crucial for Africa’s growth and poverty reduction. However, African countries lack qualified domestic university teachers. To improve this situation, Jönköping International Business School has collaborative PhD and MSc programs with Addis Ababa University and University of Rwanda.

In 2011, JIBS embarked on a five-year project to develop two doctoral programmes in business administration and economics together with Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. This project has been made possible thanks to an agreement with Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, worth almost € 1.74 million.

The collaboration between JIBS and Addis Ababa University means that the doctoral students receive training in Ethiopia. Researchers from JIBS will regularly travel to Addis Ababa to teach and supervise the students. This project is an example of JIBS’ attempts to be responsible not only to the surrounding society, but also with international scope.

In 2013, JIBS, together with 10 other Swedish schools and universities, entered a collaboration with Sida for research and research education in Rwanda. JIBS teachers travel to Rwanda and students take courses in Sweden.

At the bi-annual review meeting in Kigali on October 19-22, JIBS presented extraordinary results for 2014-2015, including progress above average for seven sandwich PhD students at JIBS, an international conference in May 2015 and the Career Development Initiative allowing colleagues from Rwanda to attend JIBS for mentoring in writing scientific articles.

On September 23rd, the third group of PhD students from Addis Ababa University (AAU) was interviewed jointly by faculty from AAU and JIBS. Among 45 applicants, 5 candidates where chosen and will arrive at JIBS in mid-November to commence their PhD courses. JIBS teach six out of eight PhD courses annually in the AAU PhD programme and supervise all PhD students together with the faculty from AAU.