Ethiopia is challenged by a strong development progress. Currently the major issues in Ethiopia, as a least developed country with a rapid urbanisation, include a high level of income inequality, lack of formal employment opportunities, deeply rooted poverty, tenure insecurity, poor infrastructure, and limited access to electricity and energy. The Erasmus+ Project "Social Inclusion and Energy Management for Informal Urban Settlements", enables European and Ethiopian universities to develop new university courses integrating the aspects of sustainability for future professionals in the field of architecture, urban planning but also social sciences. The paper investigates the respective situation in Ethiopia, and demonstrates the interactions of six selected Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations highly linked with this topic. These six Sustainable Development Goals were identified in a participative process, involving different stakeholders like government officials, urban planners or informal settlers by interviews, focus groups, workshops and conferences. The focus is on SDG1 "No Poverty", SDG3 "Good Health and Well-being", SDG7 "Affordable and Clean Energy", SDG11 "Sustainable Cities and Communities", SDG13 "Climate Action" and SDG15 "Life on Land". In the context of Ethiopian cities, energy production and distribution have been highly centralised under state entities and the scope for exploring local/business driven and decentralised energy systems has been limited. Transitions can be implemented towards sustainability and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, if collective identification and structuring of issues along with collective envisioning of the future, and the interactions and trade-offs of different goals are taken into consideration.
Ethiopia is rapidly urbanising. Similar to other urban areas in developing countries, major issues in Ethiopia include a high level of income inequality, lack of formal employment opportunities and deeply rooted poverty, tenure insecurity, poor infrastructure, and limited access to electricity and energy. Frequently settlers end up in impoverished urban squatters and slums which do not offer them even the most basic infrastructure and hence lack to provide them with the perspectives they came for. Onward migration to farer off destinations such as the EU member states thus often remains as sole option for those caught in such urban poverty traps. Although the issue of informal urban settlements is not new to the context of Ethiopian cities, the current rapid urban growth rates are exposing urban rental markets as well as infrastructure and energy supply to considerable pressure. The paper investigates the respective situation in Ethiopia and demonstrates some best practice examples. In the context of Ethiopian cities, energy production and distribution have been highly centralised under state entities and the scope for exploring local/business driven and decentralised systems has been limited. Transitions can be implemented towards sustainability and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals if collective identification and structuring of issues along with collective envisioning of future is provoked or facilitated.
Purpose Climate change, poverty and pandemics are some of the complex real-world problems that are increasingly challenging higher education institutions (HEIs) to equip future graduates with meta-competences that have hitherto not been demanded. These graduates need to be able to capture and operate within complex systems and relationships. By focusing on complex real-world problems, this study aims to systematically review competences and frame meta-competences supporting curricula development in HEIs. Design/methodology/approach This study applies a systematic literature review according to the review protocol of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. The review process resulted in the selection of 39 articles, which were subjected to qualitative synthesis to identify competences for tackling complex real-world problems. These competences were grouped into meta-competences and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Findings Scientific disciplines commonly describe four competences for tackling complex real-world problems including domain-specific competence, inter-relation competence, intrapersonal competence and normative competence. Originality This study found that inter-relation competence is in line with all the SDGs, which is considered important for tackling complex real-world problems across disciplines. Research limitations/implications A study in a survey design across disciplines and a weighting of these competences in respect to complex real-world problems aligned with the SDGs could contribute to a more consolidated and common understanding of the meta-competences identified.
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