By Prof. Simwa Lidundu – Executive Director African Network for Internationalization of Education.
This week, 10-13th June 2024, I had the opportunity to attend “The Global Sustainable Development Congress” co-hosted by Thailand’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation in Bangkok.
The conference theme was “Uniting higher education, governments, industry, and society for a sustainable future”.
At the least, the congress brought together 3000 delegates from 100 countries and 700 organisations.
I participated, though, in a session that the British Council had a master-class presentation entitled: “The British Council tackling gender inequality in higher education: what role can policymakers, leaders and other sustainability actors play?”.
I was one of the two case study presenters. My presentation was derived from an ongoing BC-funded project, co-ordinated by ANIE on gender analysis of higher education in SSA.
The one-and-a-half-hour session was ably moderated by Leighton Ernsberger, the British Council East Asia Education Director, and was assisted by Meekness Lunga, British Council, Senior Regional Programme Manager for Higher Education (SSA), and Chanya Kim Tangsuk, Head of Higher Education Programmes, East Asia at British Council.
The other presenter was Dr. Lai Suat Yan. She is a gender specialist and senior lecturer from the University of Malaya, Malaysia. Her case study was on the East Asia BC-sponsored project – GEDI.
On the whole, I gained valuable insights into many things around conference organisation, exhibition, and partnerships, which will be helpful in our organisation’s activities going forward.
May I take this opportunity to thank all colleagues at ANIE, Dr. Jowi and the British Council team, as earlier mentioned for their focused support in actualising my attendance and participation at the conference. It is indeed an auspicious honour that I will not take for granted.
