The African Climate and Environment Center – Future African Savannas (AFAS) part of the Global Centers for Climate and Environment program of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

AFAS is hosted conjointly at the University of Nairobi (UoN) with its Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation (ICCA) in Nairobi, Kenya and the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny (UFHB) with its African Centre of Excellence on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Agriculture (CEA-CCBAD) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

AFAS aims to address climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation in West and East Africa’s savannas. AFAS complements the already existing expertise in the regions with a new and innovative component on the science-policy-practice interfaces to co-produce capacity development and research outputs that are relevant to policy and practice and implementable for the public and private sectors. AFAS will establish synergistic South-South and South-North partnerships, building upon the long-standing collaboration of UFHB and UoN with the Universities of Bonn (UoB) and Cologne (UoC) in Germany.

For this master’s program, AFAS through UoN and UFHB are inviting applications for a total of 20 fully funded fellowships for the second cohort starting in September 2023. Selected students will participate in specially curated master’s courses within the core focus of AFAS. The topic of the Masters thesis will be also related to the AFAS research scope on Climate, Ecosystem Services and NbS in African Savannas. The Masters thesis and all AFAS-related coursework will be conducted in English language.

UFHB/UoN and AFAS promises an academically challenging environment through highly qualified personnel, quality teaching and research infrastructures, access to online library and journal publications and strong connections to regional and international networks. Furthermore, the successful completion of this post-graduate Program qualifies the graduates to take up lead roles in biodiversity science-policy interfaces, opens opportunity to work in international non-governmental and governmental organisations and/or launch an academic or consultancy career.

Scholarship and Research Support

The Program offers full scholarship to all successful candidates. The scholarship covers the tuition fees of the two-year Master’s Program, and in addition provides a monthly stipend of €350 (paid out in equivalent local currency), as well as a valid health insurance for the duration of the Program.

A laptop computer and research funds will also be made available to all students. The research funds will be disbursed only upon completion of all the course modules and the approval of the research proposal and associated budget by the Graduate School.

Students are expected to submit regular progress updates. Any form of misconducts, failure to maintain satisfactory academic progress and non-compliance with the university’s regulation could result in the termination of the scholarship.