Many young African lives are paused in ‘waithood’ (Honwana 2012): no longer children but unable to become independent adults. Many manage this situation through sport, religion, or both. The question at the heart of MFA is how sport and religion in tandem provide a way out of ‘waithood’. Sport and religion alternately reference each other as performance enhancers. Both have been posited as catalysts for development and integration, however, their interplay remains under-theorised. Social science views sport through a secular lens, while religious studies have been slow to recognise the ‘religious’ elements of sport. If they do, studies are limited to a Western, Christian context. MFA will span existing academic siloes by taking a multidisciplinary approach, considering the interplay between sport and religion from a non-Western, non-Christian perspective. Africa is known as the ‘sporting continent’ and Africans as the ‘most religious people’, making it a unique setting to investigate i) the ‘sport-religion nexus’ – how each appropriates the other’s values and practices and how they affect each other; and ii) how this nexus enables meaning and purpose. MFA will 1) deepen understanding of the sport-religion nexus; 2) innovate an Afrocentric, actor-oriented approach focused on lived experience; 3) centre Africa’s global sporting prowess, redressing misconceptions of Africa as peripheral; and 4) assess the potential of the sport-religion nexus as a catalyst for youth development. This will be achieved through case studies that document sports appropriating elements from different religions (Christianity, Islam, and African Endogenous Religions): boxing in Nigeria; soccer in South Africa; karate in Egypt; long-distance running in Kenya. MFA’s dissemination and open-access academic, creative, and policy outputs will contribute to decolonising knowledge production about Africa, fostering South-North collaborations, and enhancing capacity development in Africa.

HEBA – which in Arabic means “gift from God” and is used as a name for girls, was taken to represent the earth as a gift from God. The consortium helped the society to protect the earth through the project activities within Energy Efficiency and Renwewable Energies (EE+RE). It provided qualified professional resources capable of sustaining and managing the huge effort of the new lectures, curricula and infrastructure development in this field. Special emphasis was given to advanced energy management. HEBA is oriented to further development of the process of interaction with professional communities and reflects their requirements in the developed curriculum. The Mena partners achieved the objective of HEBA, by introducing mainly master level courses in the curricula, setting up of accompanying laboratories and training their teachers within the HEBA Train-of-Trainers courses. This all happened in accordance with the country’s ambitious development plans. HEBA integrates true multi-disciplinarily into the curriculum considering being shaped in close collaboration between the industry/business/public authorities and applied scientific research. The courses/modules and adapted curricula were based on the particular needs and challenges of the building/industry/energy sectors in the region evaluated by questionnaires and provide insights into implementation of research results, development and deployment of new technology and inciting entrepreneurship. This highlights the necessity of collaboration between different disciplines within EE+RE. The international dimension of the HEBA collaboration has broadened the shared knowledge base, multiplied the network and brought quality outcomes in terms of training of the next generation of energy efficiency and renewable energy specialists. HEBA is also aligned with the larger framework of the external policies of the EU in which energy and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is one of the high priority areas defined in the recent EU strategy ‘Agenda for Change’. This link to the industry and private sector in turn contributes to creating jobs and generating growth, innovation and investments in sustainable use of natural resources and cleaner technologies, resulting in energy and resource efficiency and low carbon development.

The three-year SGT-MAP aims at development of a master program in smart grid technology through the collaboration between a consortium consists of 4 Eg. and 4 EU partners of different fields; Electrical power and control eng., IT eng., communication eng. All the consortium partners contribute in developing and reviewing program 24 courses. The self study report of the developed program will be prepared and submitted to the national accreditation board in Egypt. A workshop will be organized after developing the teaching materials in order to discuss the future of smart grid and its influence on the proposed program courses contents and review the matching between contents, objective and outcomes before implementation. Related smart grid laboratories are established at EG universities to support the developed courses. Four courses are selected as a professional training courses and the related self study report will be prepared and submitted to a training accreditation board. These courses will be implemented during the program duration. Each course and its related laboratory experiments will be delivered by EU and EG trainers. The courses will be followed by a questionnaire for assessment purposes and quality assurance, which helps in continuous improving of the courses implementation. Moreover, the EU trainer will evaluate the course delivery and transfer his experience to the EG trainer. Another workshop on impact of smart grid will be held in Egypt during the 5th month of third year in order to discuss the smart grid technology impacts and the feedback of the stakeholders’ surveys. The project outcomes are presented at workshop which focuses on the impact of smart grid technology on community. Many information sessions will be organized in order to disseminate the project outcomes and the program activities. This will help in ensuring project sustainability.