Development Studies and Informatics

Insightful Real-World Evidence and Interventions

The Development Studies and Informatics Research Programme

This is a major multidisciplinary hub that helps drive the knowledge connectedness agenda of Afrihero. Activities within the programme focus on researching and integrating ICTs in socio-economic development and coalescing understandings about the roles of international development agencies in advancing specific interventions for national, regional, continental, and global challenges.

Such institutions include UN bodies (UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, IMF, UNIDO, UNDP, ILO, for example), the World Economic Forum (WEF), USAID, OECD, UK DfID, the African Union (AU), China Development Bank (CDB), Export-Import Bank of China (EIBC), African Development Bank Group (AfDBG), Asia Development Bank (ADB), Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), World Bank (WB), and myriad national institutions, ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), myriad NGOs and charitable foundations, plus banks and financial services, all these underpinned by deep masteries in bank financial management, global finance and investment, global and development economics, and political economies of African countries and generally developing countries. There will be comparative understandings of current strategic interests and business models of these organisations, especially as regards Africa, including gaps in their provisions, which will inform Afrihero-led PhD research and enterprise development initiatives. An example is China’s Belt and Road Initiative which offers billions of infrastructure loans to African and developing countries.

Continuing assessments of the needs for business model and services innovations in specific ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in Nigeria, say. Extending this to those in other African countries as we are contracted to innovate their business models and service qualities. Examples of the MDAs include the more than 100 different MDAs in Nigeria, key among which are Education, Finance and Economic Development, Central Bank of Nigeria, NSE, Agriculture, Communications, Science & Technology, etc. 

The research programme includes specialist and collaborative MSc, PhD and Postdoctoral research supervision and externally funded fellowship schemes. The Programme has a strong commitment to excellence in applied research and consultancy covering these remits.

The programme research themes include:

  1. Geographic Information Systems and Applications
  2. Enhancing the efficiency and efficiency of world bodies and national MDAs in tackling global challenges like the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the global level this includes effort to resolve the retardant factors in the world bodies listed out on p. 144 of Lynda Gratton (2015)’ The Key, see more below. These factors are: a) ineffective management; b) lack of cooperation from world powers like US, Russia and China; and c) possible unpreparedness of the institutions ‘to deal with issues that are now arising or with the threats to he economic progress’.
  3. Spatial Analysis and Modelling
  4. Geodemographics and Business Geography
  5. Related Evidence Base for Evaluating UN 2030 SDGs
  6. Development-Linked Surveys
  7. National/Global Health Assessments and Interventions
  8. Health Informatics
  9. E-Governance for Development
  10. Intelligent Policing
  11. Social Networks
  12. Social Complexity
  13. Environmental Sustainability
  14. Electoral Geography, Political Strategies and Consulting
  15. Big Data Applications
  16. Critical examination of national budgets related to their capacities to shift the needles in real socio-economic development of the countries, especially: within different sectors of an economy; what works; challenges and how to fix them across the Triple Helix of academia, industry, and government settings Setting up each of the 17 thematic UN 2030 SDGs, an Oselux African Against X Compact to tackle it effectively within the continent, through innovative Triple Helix Collaborations. For example, Oselux African Against Poverty Compact. Indeed, a look at the document ‘Agenda 2030 The UK Government’s approach to delivering the Global Goals for Sustainable Development at home and around the world’, serves a good international benchmark for collaborations to improve the Nigerian approach, and mapping out core objectives of the Against X Compacts. For completeness of this thinking here we list out the 17 themes as follows:
  17. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Against Poverty Compact;
  18. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Zero Hunger Compact;
  19. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Good Health Compact [linked to our ICRED Graduate School of Medical Sciences];
  20. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Quality Education Compact [specifically linked to our ICRED Schoool of 7E Education and Development and the entire Oselux system];
  21. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Gender Equality Compact;
  22. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Clean Water and Sanitation Compact;
  23. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Affordable and Clean Energy Compact [cf. our Afrihero International Centre for Energy Research and Industrial Development (ICERID)];
  24. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Decent Work and Economic Growth Compact [all about Oselux innovative education, training, and skills development, with quick wins achieved by juxtaposing our Skills for Students, Graduates and Start-Ups (SSGS) Academy programmes and existing technical curricula in higher educational institutions];
  25. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (3I) Compact [linked particularly to our ICRED School of Innovation and Creativity, all schools, institutes and centres, all Oselux spin-offs and emerging digital internationalising firms (DIFs) such as listed out in the School of Global Business, and all the compacts here, all beamed on core pinciples of innovation and creativity in the I& school];
  26. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Against Inequality Compact [with base knowledge gleaned from Picketty’s Capital in the 21st Century and all development-focused books in the Oselux Library, augmented with intense research and systematic reviews of seminal journal papers, followed by translation of the insights to actionable knowledge, products and services reinforced with amenable Triple Helix collaborations, and emerging insights from our annual international schools, conferences and workshops in the compacts, etc.];
  27. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Sustainable Cities and Communities Compact [requires us to mobilise collaborations among architecture/built environment, urban planning, transport, engineering and energy experts, for example, around sustainable living such as mentioned in our ICERID programme];
  28. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Responsible Consumption and Production Compact [ditto];
  29. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Climate Action Compact [ditto];
  30. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Life Below Water Compact;
  31. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Life on Land Compact [31 and 32 here will be enlivened by intense research in mathematical biology as in my PhD thesis, our ICRED Graduate School of Medical Sciences, our AfriWorld Health and Related Research programmes, with matching systematic reviews of comparative practices across the world, each time fervently translating the ideas meaningful practices];
  32. Oselux Nigeria-Africa Peace and Justice Compact [to be underpinned by ongoing research in Afrihero-ICRED Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies in Social Sciences & Humanities (IfAISSSHUM), etc.];
  33. Oselux Nigeria-Africa UN 2030 SDG Partnerships Compact [this is where we coerce all manner of partnerships across the Triple Helix, informed by ideas in The Key as well as all ideas on collaborations and partnerships, set up distinctly for each compact in alignment with research and enterprise development work highlighted i related Oselux schools and initiatives. A particularly important facet of the partnerships development is emulation of the kinds of partnerships organised by different world bodies, and instantiating them through all these compacts from the Nigerian and Sub-Sahara African perspectives in Afrihero, but globally in Oselux Worldhero3e.com at www.oseluxworldhero3e.com private website and the client-facing www.icred7e.com].

PhD topics available for supervision:

  1. Intelligence-based policing in Nigeria: Any roles for data mining and geospatial modelling?
  2. Electoral data mining, geospatial modelling and political consulting in Nigeria, and importantly
  3. 17 PhD research topics on ‘Integrated business modelling for setting up Oselux Nigeria-Africa digital internationalising firms for delivering UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals’.

The research results are disseminated locally, regionally, nationally and globally through academic publications, research reports, research cafés, internships for beginning researchers, seminars and workshops, case studies, roundtables, specialist dinners, and strategic conferences, as appropriate.

Mapping out Afrocentric solutions to global development issues explored in Lynda Gratton (2015)’s

The Key: How Corporations Succeed by Solving The World’s Toughest Problems, namely:

  • Part I Building resilience in a fragile world;
  • Part II Building inner resilience;
  • Part III Anchoring in community;
  • Part IV Addressing global challenges;
  • Part V Reimagining leadership

Links with the School of Global Issues and World Systems in www.oseluxworldhero3e.com

School of Global Issues & World Systems

Conventional academic work localises understanding of global issues such as UN Sustainable Development Goals and underpinning world systems such as UN, UNESCO, WHO, IMF, and corresponding national systems, to specific departments – political science, history, economics, and international relations, for example.

We believe that, even without taking some of these field as majors, crucial questions about how disciplinary know-how intersects with challenging problems associated with the issues and systems must be asked of modern graduates. This strategic awareness includes perspectives around specific challenges confronting different countries, regions and continents, linked to such World Systems as:

  • educational, political, economic, religious, cultural, medical, and environmental.

The awareness must reckon with national budgets are structured to address these challenges, and the nexus between their resolution and the matrix of academic and professional knowledge in the country. Obvious considerations include national productivity and competitiveness, economic policies and management.

Research within the school is therefore about the nature of knowledge connectedness required for academics, students and professionals to generate profound impact of their learning on the wider society. It includes such perspectives as:

  • The nexus among disciplinary knowledge and UN Sustainable Development Goals, for example;
  • Understanding global issues and world systems via continual general cultural literacy, through media, internet, journals, professional magazines such The Economist, and trawls through the websites of world bodies, national ministries and departments, for example;
  • Development studies and informatics;
  • Quantitative social science and humanities;
  • Real world evidence for robust decision making, including
  • Systematic reviews, meta-analysis, strategic reviews and policy blueprints;
  • Specific work in government department-focused real world evidence, for example in support of health economics modelling;
  • Reviews of national budgets in line with what is known about political economic challenges in different government departments;
  • Global impact pathways including Political Economy Scorecards on corruption, competiveness, productivity;
  • Women and youth empowerment and employability;
  • Triple Helix academia-industry-government collaborations to resolve significant national, regional, and continental problems;
  • Structured networks and partnerships;
  • Capacity building and advocacy.

Enabling platforms/spin-offs

To capacitate citizens of different countries, especially developing economies with very weak institutions for checkmating debilitating corruption and ineptitude in government, we will train young leaders and mobilise communities of action and advocacy globally. For example, in Nigeria we will establish the following outfits:

  • Nigerian Economic and Social Development Movement (NESDEM);
  • Nigerian Economic and Social Development Party (NESDEP);
  • Nigerian Anti-Corruption and Political Economy Scorecard (NIPOLESCORE);
  • Nigerian Radical Education Curriculum Innovation Programme (NIRECIP).

These outfits will work tirelessly to renew Nigeria politically, economically, and educationally, including all key ministries, departments, and agencies through Citizens Power.

Citizens will be trained and mobilised through social and mass media to task every politician to account for the resources available to them for development of their constituencies, armed with comparative information on what those amounts will reasonably achieve on invested projects, within Nigeria and globally.

Global spin-offs

We will work to replicate the above-mentioned Nigerian structures globally, especially in developing regions of the world – Africa, Middle East, Asia, and South America.

We will mobilise in these countries and globally collective interventions involving hundreds of thousands of well-trained education and change-minded mediators who will engage in regular meditations and activities focused on achieving global coherence and innovations in the seven main world systems listed above. Hence, we will facilitate the following ICRED Global Coherence and Innovation Projects (GloCIPs):

  • ICRED GloCIP for Education;
  • ICRED GloCIP for Politics and Democracy;
  • ICRED GloCIP for Socio-Economic Development;
  • ICRED GloCIP for Religious Harmony;
  • ICRED GloCIP for Culture and Peace;
  • ICRED GloCIP for Health and Well-Being;
  • ICRED GloCIP for Environmental Sustainability.

Again, work in this school produces outstanding corporate-academic PhD theses, MSc dissertations, and advanced project outcomes, which can be spun-off as social enterprises, and for-profit born-global firms that are powered by the Internet.

Dissemination pathways

  • Convening annual AfriWorldhero3e International Schools, Symposia, Conferences and Workshops (ISSCWs) with all these topics as themes
  • Publishing related proceedings, journal papers, superbooks and research monographs.

Enquiries

For more details, please contact us at:

Email:  info@afrihero.org.uk; or through Tel. no:  +447772632150 to speak to the Director of Research and Enterprise Development, Professor Patrick Oseloka EZEPUE