Introduction

This chapter will highlight some of the key sustainability challenges faced by countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and their implications for education and learning in relation to some key social and ecological issues. It will present extracts from three case studies by postgraduate researchers in education for sustainable development (ESD) in Uganda, Malawi and Rwanda. Reference will be made to the importance of context and appropriacy and to the relevance of local and indigenous knowledge.

This body of research is a rich resource for ESD in Africa and has already enabled many scholars to make changes to and impacts on their organisations and countries. A number of scholars have also contributed to cross-regional initiatives, such as UNEP's (United Nations Environment Programme) Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability across Africa (MESA) programme, which seeks to mainstream ESD across all African universities. It is unfortunately not possible to do justice to the full range of work by this group, so we have drawn out some key themes and extracts from their research to illustrate the range and importance of this regional contribution. Africa as a continent and as a region is frequently marginalised or even left out of international discussions and debates and African voices are still not given the attention that is deserved or needed. An examination of most academic literature in political science or ESD will illustrate this absence and this is even more evident in international peer-reviewed journals. There are a variety of reasons for this that are beyond the scope of this chapter to investigate but these case studies will be set within the framework of the politics of knowledge and the challenges that dominant global knowledge systems pose to ESD.

This group of African postgraduate researchers has emerged from the learning community of practice in ESD generated by the master's programme in ESD at London South Bank University. As recipients of prestigious UK Commonwealth Scholarship awards for master's distance learning courses, they were selected for their leadership potential for development impact, as well as their academic ability. The ethos of the ESD programme has promoted a strong community of practice, which was firmly embraced by the scholars themselves.