HUYE - The National University of Rwanda plans to introduce the Global Master's in Development Practice (MDP).

The MDP is a two-year degree course providing graduate-level students with skills and knowledge required to better identify and address the global challenges of sustainable development.

The challenges include poverty, population, health, conservation, climate change, and agricultural productivity.

Speaking to The New Times yesterday, the Vice Rector for Academics at NUR, Prof. Herman Musahara, said that the university plans to introduce the course with the help of the Dublin based Trinity College.

"This is not another ordinary development master’s program. It is a very important program because it touches and addresses global development challenges,” said Musahara, emphasising the relevance of the program.

The course would make Rwanda the third country in Africa to host it, after Botswana and Senegal. Musahara says that the program will be able to attract students from the region and beyond.

Integrating the core areas of the health, natural, social and management sciences, the MDP program provides students with substantive knowledge and practical skills required to analyse and diagnose the multi-dimensional challenges of sustainable development.

"It is a cut edged program that is multi-disciplinary. It is preferred because it accompanies the United Nations development programs.”

According to the MDP websites, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has committed more than US$15 million to create MDP programs at 20 universities worldwide with NUR one of the beneficiaries.

The university currently runs about 30 masters programs.

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