LATEST NEWS

The University of Rwanda in collaboration with Sweden Programme organized a consultative meeting with various stakeholders. The meeting aimed at presenting the concept note about the extension of Sweden support to the University of Rwanda through UR-Sweden Programme for Research, Higher Education and Institutional Advancement.

In his remarks during the concept presentation, Dr Charles Murigande appreciated the Swedish collaboration which enabled the University of Rwanda to contribute in finding solutions of critical challenges that the country is facing. Murigande who is the University of Rwanda Deputy Vice Chancellor for Institution Advancement further observed that the concept encompasses vital components that will allow the University to generate knowledge about home grown solutions. According to him, the University has made tremendous progress but the aim is still high.

Dr. Murigande during the presentation.

"We have grown up, we laid the foundation but we are not where we need to be" He said, adding that the University is moving towards complementing the country’s efforts to move away from agriculture based economy towards knowledge and the skills based economy.

On this occasion, Mr. Mikael Boström, the Head of Development Cooperation in Rwanda at Swedish Embassy hailed the concept design and encouraged the University to incorporate some of crosscutting items like gender, climate change and aspects on home grown solutions.

Mr.Boström and Dr Emilia (in front)during the meeting.

Dr Emilia Molnar, the Senior Programme Manager for Research and Higher Education at Swedish Embassy appreciated the University progress and called for ensuring that the concept is aligned with country’s strategies to address national development challenges.

In his presentation about the University of Rwanda, Prof Phil Cotton the University of Rwanda Vice Chancellor underlined the contribution of UR-Sweden Programme to the milestone that the University has recently achieved. He added that since its inception, UR has evolved to be an institution with high impact to the community by nurturing talents and skills of young people who contribute to the development of the country.

The Vice Chancellor’s remarks during the meeting.

Among the key guests in the meeting was Her Excellency Christine Nkulikiyinka, the Rwanda Ambassador to Sweden. She commended the University collaboration with Sweden Programme and noted that the partnership is of paramount importance since it captures research as one of the key drivers for the development of the country.

The concept note presentation follows the resolutions taken during Annual Review Meeting between UR and UR Sweden programme back in October 2016. By then, an agreements was made to extend the support for more 5 years on the current Programme Support which is ending in 2018.

More event photos

Group photo_ from left Mr Raymond the Overall Coordinator of UR-Sweden Programme, Prof. Cotton, Amb. Nkulikiyinka and Dr Murigande.

Invited stakeholders also provide some inputs_ here the DG of Workforce Development Authority.

Moment of discussion between the Ambassador, the Vice Chancellor and Swedish Embassy delegates.

Mr Godfrey Kabera the DG in MINECOFIN during the presentation.

The Vice Chancellor chats with the Amb. Nkulikiyinka before the presentation of the concept.

By Darius Murangwa
Communications Officer

Research findings have linked Pesticides to a wide range of human health hazards, ranging from short-term impacts such as headaches and nausea to chronic impacts like cancer, reproductive harm. This has spurred a growing interest in phosphite as part the solution to controlling diseases in plants without running for pesticide.

 Dr Tewodros Mulugeta from Ethiopia is one of the academics who made presentations during UR Scientific research conference. Arguably the youngest PhD holder in attendance (recently graduated from Swedish University of Agricultural sciences),Tewodros made a presentation on “The influence of phosphite on P. Infestans and synergism with conventional fungicide in field-grown potato and tomato in Ethiopia”.

 He noted that potatoes are highly nutritive, make billion people feed while the commodity is an income-millions of farmers. Potato is third world consumed commodity after rice, wheat and is followed by maize, FAO (2014). Despite being an important food and cash crop in Ethiopia, he said that potato productivity is still low due to poor seed distribution, susceptible cultivars/high disease pressure limited fungicide alternatives among others. Thus, many farmers find the production impossible without using fungicide or other form of pesticide and chemicals. However, these increase production costs, and those commonly used are considered as environmental and human health hazards.

 In his research, Tewodros recommends the use of phosphites as an alternative to fungicide because the former have low effect on the environment, untargeted organisms and human health. He further noted that he is working hard to recommend the use of phosphite on the plants because pesticides are causing many problems to human and environment and it is the duty of researchers to protect farmers. 

Dr Tewodros during his presentation

 “we need to address the issues by involving other methods that has no effects on environment and human beings and simply reduce the effects”. Tewodros said, adding that it is very pertinent to scaling up the experiment to farmers and make them adopt other alternative methods other than fungicide to boost productivity.

 His take on the conference is that it had a lot of impact and will enable the University of Rwanda to have a lot of collaboration which will ultimately support different areas of development. 

Partcipants in the presentation

 “I have talked with a lot of guys with different discipline, I have seen their commitment and the way we are trying to come up with some kind of collaboration, and it is really a very good start for the University of Rwanda and they should keep doing this as far as they can” He concluded.

 Under the support of UR-Sweden Program for Research, Higher Education and Institutional Advancement for the conference attracted more than 500 academics and researchers from around the globe.

By Darius Murangwa
 Communication Officer