Implementation of Grant for Global Sustainability (2nd Term) Begins

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News
  • 2017•11•06     Tokyo

    With generous support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology in Japan, UNU-IAS has begun the second-term implementation of the Grant for Global Sustainability (GGS). Since August 2017, this initiative has supported research related to contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. During this term, twenty-eight proposals were submitted by educational and research institutions based in Japan to apply for the maximum three-year grants. In July 2017, following a competitive selection process, three proposals were chosen that focus on one of the following three themes and the respective project implementation has commenced.

    Theme 1: Education and governance to achieve inclusive development

    Nagoya Univesity
    Project Title: Knowledge and skills which lead to decent work: The development of a skills assessment module for TVET graduates and curriculum evaluation in developing countries

    This project, with an objective to improve the applicability of skills training in Africa to the real needs of the labor market, aims to develop a module for assessing supply-demand gaps of expectation for skills and for improving the relevance of training, through case studies in Ethiopia, South Africa, and Ghana based on a comparative analysis, tracer study, and reliability test. It targets the creation of a module which will be applicable beyond specific national and industrial contexts.

    Theme 2: Solutions to the challenges faced by the Earth’s systems

    Graduate School of Agriculture, National University Corporation, Kyoto University
    Project Title: Incorporation of biodiversity indicators into ecosystem-service forest certification towards achieving synergy between biodiversity conservation and sustainable forest use

    This project will empirically examine and resolve the technical issues of the “Forest Certification for Ecosystem Services (ForCES)” which was developed by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) by incorporating biodiversity-mapping techniques into the auditing procedure of ForCES in Indonesia and Malaysia to contribute to the sustainable conservation and management of tropical forest and biodiversity. It will also verify positive influences of the issuance of ForCES certification on various stakeholders to determine whether ForCES is adoptable.

    Theme 3: Solutions to the challenges encountered by cities and residential areas

    Ibaraki University
    Project Title: Strategies for adaptation to sea level rise in urban atolls through conservation and rehabilitation of natural processes of island formation

    This project aims to develop and implement environmental measures and technologies for the conservation and rehabilitation of sand production processes for healthy island formation to counter rising sea level in the Majuro Atoll and to develop a method for pollution load reduction in septic tanks and sewage pipelines, conservation area maps, and an integrated urban area-groundwater-lagoon model which can predict water quality in the lagoon given values of pollution loads from the urban area.