IAD Global Africa Monthly Webinar Series
Women, Indigenous Knowledge and Social Progress in Africa in the 21st Century
Friday, March 25, 2022
10:00am - 12:00pm EST / 2:00pm - 4:00pm GMT
Registration link Simultaneous French translation
10:00am - 10:05am: Welcome, Greetings and Introduction of the Chair - Prof. N'Dri Assie-Lumumba
10:05am - 10:20am Introduction of the Event and the Panelists - Dr. Catherine A. Odora Hoppers
10:20am - 11:20am Panelists Presentations
- Professor Aicha Maherzi
- Dr. Florence Etta
- Dr. Marema Toure Thiam
- Dr. Aicha El Alaoui
- Dr. Babalwa Magoqwana
11:20am -11:50am Questions and Comments from the Audience
11:50am - 11:55am Synthesis by Chair Catherine A. Odora Hoppers
Introduction to the Series
N'Dri Assie-Lumumba is the Director of the Institute for African Development (IAD) and Professor of African and African Diaspora education, Comparative and International education, Social institutions, African social history, and the study of Gender, in the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University. She is also a member of other Cornell graduate fields: Education; Global Development (International Development; International Agriculture and Rural Development) and the Cornell Institute of Public Affairs (CIPA). She joined Cornell in 1991, both as a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow and Ford Foundation/Africana Studies Fellow. She served as Director of the Cornell Program on Gender and Global Change (GGC) and Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) of Africana Studies. She is the current President of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) of UNESCOS’s Inter-governmental program for the Management of Social Transformations (MOST), founding President of Global Africa Comparative and International Education Society, and former President of Comparative and International Education Society (CIES).
Chair
Catherine Odora Hoppers is a Professor in the the Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation South African Research Chair in Development Education at Unisa. Professor Hoppers is a scholar and policy specialist on International Development, education, North-South questions, disarmament, peace, and human security. She is a UNESCO expert in basic education, lifelong learning, information systems and on Science and Society; an expert in disarmament at the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs; an expert to the World Economic Forum on benefit sharing and value addition protocols; and the World Intellectual Property Organisation on traditional knowledge and community intellectual property rights. Professor Hoppers holds a South African Research Chair in Development Education at the University of South Africa (2008 on...) a National Chair set up by the Department of Science and Technology. Prior to that, she was a technical adviser on Indigenous Knowledge Systems to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (South Africa) and led the Task Team to draft the national policy on Indigenous Knowledge Systems. She was a Distinguished Professional at the Human Sciences Research Council; an Associate Professor at the University of Pretoria. She was the Scientific Coordinator and Campus Director for the Council for the Development of Social Science in Africa (CODESRIA) Annual Social Science Campus (2006); and a recipient of an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from Orebro University (Sweden), and an Honorary Doctorate in Education from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa.
Panelists
Dr. Aicha El Alaoui is the professor-researcher at the University Sultan My Slimane of BéniMellal, and the President of Dihiya Centre for Human Rights, Democracy and Development in Rabat-Morocco. Dr. El Alaoui’s interests focus on economic development research, global education policy, migration, gender, smart cities and the interplay between these areas and social justice. She has led projects in the fields of education, migration, smart cities and women’s empowerment. She is the author of numerous books and articles.
Dr. Florence Etta, CEO & Principal Partner, GRAIDE International Development Evaluation Consulting. Dr. Florence Ett a is currently an evaluation entrepreneur actively engaged in supporting evaluation in international and national spaces and platforms. A World Evaluation Case Competition 2020 judge, She is currently the Vice Co-Chair of EVALSDGs, a global network created in 2015 by EvalPartners and Vice Chair of the Africa Gender & Development Evaluators network established in 2002. She served as Chair of the UN Women Global Evaluation Advisory Committee between 2017 and 2019 and as the 6th President of the African Evaluation Association and the founding Chair of the Board of Management for the Africa Gender & Development Evaluators Network (AGDEN). She is an active member of three contemporary global evaluation networks including EvalGender+ and EvalIndigenous since their creation in 2015. She is a Fellow and founding General Secretary of the Nigerian Association of Evaluators (NAE), a member of American Evaluation Association and a life member of IDEAS – the international Development Evaluation Association. She spent 16 years as a lecturer and researcher in Nigerian Higher Education institutions before joining international development practice with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Senegal and Nairobi. Florence is CEO and Principal Consultant with GRAIDE International Consultants Limited (GiC Ltd), Nigeria - a monitoring, evaluation and research company and social enterprise.
Dr. Marema Touré Thiam, Former Chef Section (SHS) Sciences Humaines et Sociales, Bureau Régional Multisectoriel pour le Sahel à Dakar. de Paris I / Sorbonne Panthéon, Marèma Touré Thiam est aussi titulaires de deux Diplôme d’Etude Approfondie (DEA) en Sciences de l’Education et en Sociologie du Tiers Monde, de deux Maitrises, de deux Licences en sociologie du Développement, et en psychopédagogie clinique appliquée à l’éducation. Elle avait, au préalable, obtenu deux Diplômes d’Etudes Générales (DEUG) respectivement en « Education, communication et Animation » (ECA) et « Territoires, Économie et Sociétés » (TES). Sa thèse de doctorat (thèse unique), soutenu dans les années 90 à l’Université de Paris I / Sorbonne Panthéon sur le thème « Femmes, genre et initiatives de développement en Afrique subsaharienne : théories et pratiques », a été sanctionnée par une mention « très honorable avec les félicitations du jury »Son titre actuel, depuis janvier 2022, est : Dre Marèma Touré Thiam, retraitée de l’UNESCO-ONU ; Consultante internationale – Directrice de Thiory Consulting Group - Fondatrice de la Société « Thiory Ingénierie SUARL ».De 2010 à 2021, en tant que Spécialiste des programme, Cheff e de Section des Sciences Humaines et Sociales (SHS) du Bureau Régional Multisectoriel de l’UNESCO basé à Dakar -BReDa-, pendant les douze dernières années, elle a dirigé plusieurs recherches sur des thématiques d’actualité, organisé plusieurs formations et coordonné des événements majeurs dans le champ global des Humanités et des Sciences Sociales dont le dernier était relatif au « Forum Africain des Humanités » (FHA) tenu à Bamako en septembre 2021 à la suite des Conférences Africaine et Mondiale des Humanités (la CAH et la CMH) qui ont respectivement eu lieu à Bamako et à Liège en 2017.
Prof. Aïcha Maherzi is a Professor in the Department of Education and Training UFR (Unité de Formation et de Recherche) Sciences, Spaces and Societies at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, and former Vice-President of Université d’Alger. She holds a Doctorate degree in Littérature et civilisation arabo-musulmanes from Sorbonne University in Paris. Author of many publications in the social sciences and humanities, Professor Maherzi is also a poet and writer. She has served as a consultant at UNESCO and in the United Nations for ethics. She was President of the Mediterranean Society of Comparative Education (MESCE) and is the founding President of Mondial Association for Peace by Comparative Education (MAPE). In both capacities, she has been a member of the Executive Committee of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES). Within WCCES she assumes many other responsibilities, including as the chair of the Standing Committee on Ethics. She has lectured extensively on topics including comparative education, peace education, cultural anthropology, gender, sociology, history, comparative literature, epistemology, and research methodology in institutions in the world.
Dr. Babalwa Magoqwana, Interim Director, Centre for Women and Gender Studies, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa and Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology, She is currently acting as a Director for the Centre for Women and Gender Studies, at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She is a fellow of the African Humanities Programme; Research Associate for the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Social Policy at the University of South Africa (UNISA); and former President of the South African Sociological Association (SASA, 2017-2019). She is the recipient of the National Research Foundation / First Rand Foundation Sabbatical Grant for her project on ‘Woman-Centred Vernacular Sociology of the Eastern Cape’. Her Research project on the ‘Maternal Legacies of Knowledge’ is supported by the National Institutt e for the Humanities and Social Sciences, South Africa.
This webinar series features diverse voices from the African continent and the Diaspora on a wide range of themes, challenges, breakthroughs in cutting-edge research outcomes, innovations, and discoveries across all disciplines and area studies. It is open to the global public.