This presentation is part of the 5th African Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) Conference in Uganda, 14-16 October 2015

1. RCEs AS
INNOVTIVE
SLANT AND
MEDIUM TO
LOCAL
SOLUTIONS FOR
COMMUNITY
TRANSFORMATI
ON
A SYNOPSIS
BY ALI BUKAR AHMAD
RCE KANO, NIGERIA

2. RCEs AND THEIR COMPOSITION
 An RCE is a group of organizations,
agencies , institutions and associations,
both formal and informal, living and doing
their activities in the same locality/region
that are synergized to provide sustainable
development solutions through formal,
informal and non-formal forms of
education within the same community
and/or region.

3. RCEs AS INNOVATIVE SLANT
 They are locally/regionally based
 Activities are Locally relevant and culturally
appropriate
 Constantly accommodating more partnership
and collaboration with other organizations
trying to accomplish similar goals
 Integrating modern technology with local
knowledge and methodologies
 Translating theory to practice
 Multi stakeholder approach
 Melting pot of skills and expertise

4. NATURE OF RCEs WORLD OVER

5. NATURE OF WORKING
TOGETHER BEFORE RCEs WERE
INVENTED AND AFTER

6. RCEs AS COMMUNITY
TRANSFORMERS
 They provide equitable partnerships between the
combined expertise of communities and
professions, literate and illiterate, formal and
informal,
 Provide platform for multi stakeholder dialogue
 Provide platform that enable diverse groups to
interact, learn collaboratively, take collective
decisions and act sustainably together.
 They collaborate with other RCEs for skills and
knowledge transfer
 They reorient methodologies and techniques and
address issues with the environment, economy
and society holistically

7. SYNERGY TRANSFORMATION

8. RCEs INNOVATIVE AND
TRANSFORMATIVE RULES OF
ENGAGEMENT
 Who else in the community that can be effective and
successful in the community’s Sustainability realization
mission
 What roles are currently unfilled or need to be created and
who might best fill them
 When is the right time for them to be brought on board
 What potential barriers exist to recruiting these new partners
and what strategies can help overcome those barriers
 Engages those who are most affected by the problem in
the locality
 Think of who else needs to be engaged in order for the RCE
to be effective and successful.

9. BOLT AND NUT OF
TRANSFORMATION WITHIN THE
RCE AND THE COMMUNITY
 Open access policy
 Equal opportunity
 Sound leadership and democratic operating rules
and governance
 Division of labour
 Plans, Short and long term
 Collective decision making and implementation
 Creating a space in communication for personal
difficulties or dissent .
 Asking about performance or suggestion from the
community for improvement

10. EXAMPLES OF RCE
TRANFORMATIVE ACTIVITIES
Youth, Culture and poverty
reduction, Biodiversity and
Vocational training
Rural women, energy and climate
change, Traditional Knowledge, waste
reduction and recycling, SCP,, Agriculture
and Pollution control

11. RCEs COMMUNITY
TRANSFORMATION
ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR
 Reduced the level of resistance to innovation within the communities and
their leadership
 Condensed poor coordination among the different groups in the community
 Revert to the amazing of all history of unproductive synergies and
partnerships in the communities
 Exposed the chain reactions of unsustainable actions in the community
 Helped the communities to see themselves as a whole more than ever
before.
 Increased level of commitment and motivation among the current partners
and the community.
 Influenced policies, attracted policy makers attention to a particular society’s
unsustainable problem and in other continent; managed to bring the policy
makers as RCE members taking active role within
 Bridging the formal, informal and non-formal approach to problems
 Integrating modern and local knowledge
 Solved to significant levels community/society’s complex problems that are
influenced by multiple factors
 Taking a community to the world and bringing the world back to a
community

12. RCEs CHALLENGES IN THEIR
INNOVATIVE AND
TRANSFORMATION DRIVE
 Lack of fund to up scale sustainable project and
program in the communities
 Low collaboration and partnership among the RCEs
within and outside their continent of location
 Lack of feedback communication among the RCE
stakeholders and partners about their
accomplishments and concerns
 Low visibility within the communities and
 Trough attention by policy makers, regional and
continental bodies engagement especially in Africa

13. SUSTAINABILITY AND MORE
 RCEs not only provide Sustainability solutions
to the communities they live in, but Create in
them:
 Hopes
 Aspirations
 Dreams
 Motivations
 Momentum
 Novelty and inventions
What's more?

14. THANK YOU