Maseno University Hosts the 3rd East Africa Regional Capacity-Building Workshop on Strengthening Science Diplomacy for Sustainable Development
Maseno University's Ag. Vice-Chancellor Prof. Erick Nyambedha welcomes participants and ties the event to the University's hosting of the Future Earth East Africa Node. He Officially Opened the 3rd East Africa Regional Capacity Building Training Workshop on Science Diplomacy. He thanked the global, continental, national and regional partners who support the initiative collectively.
He notes that the earlier workshops in 2024 and 2025 showed the region has strong research talent, but that findings too often stay in journals and reports instead of shaping policy and benefiting communities. He argues that the missing link is the science–policy–diplomacy interface, and that real capacity building needs more than workshops and certificates: it needs mentoring, career pathways, communities of practice and hands-on policy engagement.
He calls for institutional change, with Universities, funders, governments and development partners all sharing responsibility, and says success should be measured by policy influence and community benefit rather than the number of people trained. He closes by urging the region to build bridges between science, policy and implementation, to use science diplomacy to address shared cross-border challenges, and to develop a new generation of rigorous, policy-literate professionals.
Maseno University has opened the 3rd East Africa Regional Capacity Building Training Workshop, a five-day programme on Strengthening Science Diplomacy for Sustainable Development. It runs from 5 to 9 October 2026. The workshop is Organised with partners including the International Science, Technology and Innovation Centre for South-South Cooperation under the auspices of UNESCO (ISTIC), the Future Earth Africa Hub Leadership Centre, NACOSTI, the Landscape Alliance, NRF Kenya, NRF South Africa, International University Network on Cultural and Biological Diversity (IUNCBD) and Maseno University.
The workshop follows two earlier editions, held at Murang'a University of Technology in 2024 and the Technical University of Kenya in 2025. Those events focused on research capacity among early- and mid-career professionals. This edition goes a step further, asking how research can shape policy and regional cooperation.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Partnerships, Research and Innovation, Prof. Regina Nyunja, said the challenges facing the region, including climate change, biodiversity loss, food and water insecurity and global health threats, do not respect borders. She said solving them requires science that informs policy and partnerships that cross institutions, sectors and countries, adding that this is the purpose of science diplomacy and the reason the workshop matters to the region.
Prof. Nyunja said that over the course of the week, participants would explore the foundations of science diplomacy, sharpen their skills in communication, negotiation and stakeholder engagement, and learn to turn research into evidence-informed recommendations. She encouraged them to engage fully with the case studies and simulations and to build networks that would outlast the workshop.
Prof. Nyunja thanked the partners and the organizing team for making the workshop possible and reaffirmed the university's commitment to research, partnerships and innovation that serve sustainable development. She wished the delegates a productive and inspiring workshop.
The training brings together researchers, research managers, government officials, policymakers and representatives of science councils and NGOs from across Eastern Africa. Its programme covers the foundations of science diplomacy, science advice for policymaking, international research collaboration, South-South and triangular cooperation, and negotiation and stakeholder engagement, all reinforced through case studies and group exercises, with a keynote on unlocking Africa's Science, Technology and Innovation. The workshop aims to deepen participants' grasp of science diplomacy concepts, build practical skills in communication, policy engagement, stakeholder mapping with consensus-building, and strengthen their ability to turn research into policy-relevant recommendations to forge interdisciplinary and regional partnerships.
