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Partnerships are understood to be one of the strategies for internationalisation of higher education institutions. In recent years, there has been a slight shift in trends, with diversifying partnerships among African universities and with countries that do not have colonial ties. These include the USA, Canada and Scandinavian countries, among others, labelled as North–South partnerships. With the scarcity of empirical research on the subject matter, the impetus of this study was to explore the rationales, benefits and success factors for North–South partnerships across higher education institutions as perceived by administrators and academics from one Northern country, Sweden, and one Southern country, Mozambique. The study applied a mixed methods approach eliciting the experiences of 77 people in the two countries who are engaged in some form of North–South partnerships. The results showed that North–South partnerships are motivated by four rationales: academic, economic, social-cultural and political, enhanced by the success factors, among which are communication, trust, participation in decision-making, mutual respect, and attainment of goals and resources. Collaborative advantages across these partnerships were noted but some practices could be more decolonised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines opposing viewpoints on Northern research interventions in Southern cities regarding urban refugees. While some argue for a complete boycott of Northern interventions, others perpetuate colonial attitudes of patronization. Engaging with decolonial perspectives, this article aims to bridge the gap between current practices and a desired decolonial future in refugee studies. By reflecting on personal experiences, it highlights the usually unnoticed dynamics of North–South partnerships, academic and non-academic, in refugee studies. The article explores the Northern presence in the South, focusing on Jordan. It analyses four primary trends of Northern conduct in Jordan: the shift from women empowerment to climate change , rapid out-of-touch fieldwork , the Four Seasons Phenomenon , and the add-on partners. Finally, it seeks a middle ground by providing guidance to both Northern and Southern entities, facilitating better partnerships. This article aims to raise awareness and guide experts, scholars, and INGOs in refugee studies and other disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of trusting relationships is a stated aim of student mobility programs, but resources to support virtual relationship-building in the absence of in-person student travel to international locations have yet to be developed. Towards informing the development of such resources, especially for the context of North-South partnerships, qualitative research was conducted based on the experience of a 2020 summer cohort of remote interns at a Canadian university and an East African partner supervisor. Thematic analysis of intern blogs and semi-structured interviews indicates several considerations and recommendations that, if considered prior to virtual international student learning opportunities, could optimize learning and North-South relationshipbuilding potential of these opportunities. These considerations and recommendations include: recognizing that the formality of online communication can limit feelings of trust and closeness between participants; infrequent communication can impact relationship-building; self-reflexive practice must be intentional to optimize learning in virtual internships; open communication makes a difference to learning and relationships; and, internships would benefit from the development of internship-specific strategic plans. More robust research on remote international internships is warranted to build up understanding of how and why virtual student international internships in general, and virtual internships involving Global North-South partnership in particular, differ from in-person internships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Global health partnerships (GHP) between high or low-middle income countries are considered one of the best approaches to health systems strengthening. They typically involve highly skilled healthcare workers who volunteer to deliver capacity strengthening projects overseas, often in the form of peer-to-peer support through training and mentoring. Given GHP’s strong focus on education and training, a common assumption is that training of trainers (ToT) is a strong predictor of sustainability because of its potential for up-skilling the workforce rapidly, cheaply and exponentially by developing local educators. Our aim is to test this assumption and identify the strengths and limitations of this approach by analysing qualitative data from a set of GHP funded by the UK Department for International Development through the Tropical Health and Education Trust. Results Our analysis identifies some of the common features of the ToT model and a number of limitations that can prevent it from being both effective and sustainable. Whilst most GHP strive for the long-term sustainability of the training by focusing on adequate training provision and support of local trainers, the wider issues that can facilitate or prevent the continuation of training are not always considered. We propose a conceptual framework (TRAIN) for ToT interventions to help inform practice and project evaluation. We illustrate the applicability of our framework through five case studies, each chosen to illustrate one aspect of the framework. Conclusions TRAIN is intended as a starting point for further refinements and discussions about the factors affecting capacity building strategies based on training cascades. Although we envisage its usefulness to GHP as a guidance to design and operationalise ToT, we recognise that in practice it may be difficult to implement it in its entirety. The key message underlying TRAIN is that the sustainability of a cascade depends on a number of factors being present or developing at different operational levels during the course of a project. These are crucial to transform the opportunities that ToT affords to health systems in developing countries into the actual achievement of a training cascade that ultimately upskills the workforce and improves health outcomes in these countries.

Knowledge production and its possibilities and pitfalls in North–South research partnerships have gained increasing attention. The previous literature has identified certain pervasive challenges, and suggested a variety of ways to change partnerships, ranging from improvement of current collaboration activities to fundamental transformation of the hegemonic Eurocentric criteria for knowledge. Against this backdrop, we ask what kinds of learning can take place in research partnerships. We draw from two sources – an institutional approach and a classical categorization of learning proposed by Gregory Bateson – to develop a heuristic for analyzing institutional learning in North–South research partnerships. Moreover, based on previous empirical studies and our own experience with academic collaboration between Finnish and Tanzanian scholars, we reflect on the ways in which learning in its different forms shows in partnership practices that need to deal with different, intertwined institutional fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the number of publications and proportion of corresponding authors of Latin American scholars and scholars from the German Max Planck Society (MPS) and the Leibniz Association (LA; 1954–2018), this article asks if North–South partnerships continue to represent power imbalances. Our bibliometric analysis indicates that (a) in comparison with the LA, the MPS's scientists published more articles with Latin American countries, led by Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico; (b) researchers from the MPS and the LA frequently took the role of corresponding author; (c) researchers from Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico primarily controlled their region's productivity, but (d) Brazil built its own multinational research networks; and (e) countries with less productivity, such as Colombia and Uruguay, are on peripheries of research networks. Our findings indicate that the decolonial perspective needs further development to identify multipolar relationships of dominance and collaboration have developed out of a dichotomy world of North–South relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science and technology are key to economic and social development, yet the capacity for scientific innovation remains globally unequally distributed. Although a priority for development cooperation, building or developing research capacity is often reduced in practice to promoting knowledge transfers, for example through North–South partnerships. Research capacity building/development tends to focus on developing scientists' technical competencies through training, without parallel investments to develop and sustain the socioeconomic and political structures that facilitate knowledge creation. This, the paper argues, significantly contributes to the scientific divide between developed and developing countries more than any skills shortage. Using Charles Taylor's concept of irreducibly social goods, the paper extends Sen's Capabilities Approach beyond its traditional focus on individual entitlements to present a view of scientific knowledge as a social good and the capability to produce it as a social capability. Expanding this capability requires going beyond current fragmented approaches to research capacity building to holistically strengthen the different social, political and economic structures that make up a nation's innovation system. This has implications for the interpretation of human rights instruments beyond their current focus on access to knowledge and for focusing science policy and global research partnerships to design approaches to capacity building/development beyond individual training/skills building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International university partnerships are a prevalent internationalization strategy for both North American and African higher education institutions, yet the predominance of discourses that reflect the inequities of the global knowledge economy among participants perpetuate the very challenges that they are designed to address. Using a postcolonial framework, this study provides a critical analysis of qualitative interviews conducted with faculty members from one West African and one U.S. university participating in an international higher education partnership. The paper examines the motivations and perceived benefits of the partnership among participants at both institutions. It argues that the history of inequitable relationships perpetuated by globalization continues to shape understandings and pose challenges to achieving mutuality in North-South university partnerships. Findings show, for both institutions, motivations for partnership participation are based on the expectations and anticipated benefits to their institution as well as an alignment with the individual's personal goals and objectives. Furthermore, perceptions of power imbalances between participants at the two institutions are evident. Despite the partnership's intent for mutuality and reciprocity, the narratives of both West African and U.S. participants reinforce inequitable hierarchies. However, they also highlight opportunities for working toward greater mutuality and intercultural learning through North-South partnerships. Recommendations for cultivating reciprocity in North-South university partnerships are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Adequate pathology services are a prerequisite to accurate cancer diagnoses and tailoring appropriate treatment. Limitations in skilled personnel and infrastructure are among the challenges faced by developing countries. We describe a stepwise implementation of anatomic pathology laboratory services at Butaro District Hospital, designated as a Cancer Center of Excellence in rural Rwanda. Methods: The phased approach to developing pathology services up to December 2012 is described. A retrospective review of specimens submitted to Butaro District Hospital between July 1, 2012, and December 31, 2012, was conducted. Patient clinical characteristics and sociodemographics are also described. Results: During the study period, a total of 437 tissue specimens were submitted. Among these, 143 (32.7%) were from male patients, 244 (55.8%) were confirmed as malignant, 163 (37.3%) were benign, 28 (6.4%) were inconclusive, and two (0.5%) results were not available at the time of analysis. The median time from specimen receipt at Butaro to final reporting was 32 days (range, 7-193 days; interquartile range, 23-44 days). Conclusions: Our experience demonstrates that anatomic pathology services can be established in resource-limited settings and local capacity can be built to support accurate diagnoses. Our approach included leveraging partnerships, volunteer experts, and task shifting and will be expanded to include telepathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY This article addresses twinning between local governments in North and South, contributing to the past decade's discourse on institutional twinning in this journal. Local governments have increasingly become recognised as relevant actors in international development cooperation through city-to-city cooperation structures, which have been praised as an effective mechanism for local government capacity building. This article discusses the learning practices and the extent to which new knowledge is valued and adopted by twinning participants in both North and South and moreover whether learning benefits are mutual. In a study of three partnerships between Dutch municipalities and partner cities in Peru, South Africa and Nicaragua, 36 participants were interviewed. The findings reveal that learning in city-to-city partnerships is not mutual between North and South and that the benefits of 'shared learning'-a rhetoric commonly used in the twinning discourse-are limited. Instead, other opportunities for mutuality arise for Northern municipalities from political and strategic benefits, such as staff loyalty and motivation. Mutuality in twinning hence deserves a broader interpretation than learning alone so that twinning benefits can be identified and maximised for both North and South, keeping cities interested and motivated. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research capacity strengthening (RCS) is a key strategy to address the problem of health inequity and development. In spite of policy statements on 'capacity development' and 'North-South partnerships' among commissioning and donor agencies, most RCS initiatives operate on the conventional supply-driven, expatriate-led, short-term project, technical cooperation model which has proved ineffective in building institutional capacity and sustaining research environments. This paper analyzes the political economy of health research commissioning among bilateral, multilateral, non-governmental and philanthropic organizations, using East Africa as a case study. Instead of conventionally focusing on recipient countries and institutions, we look at the policies and practices of donor and commissioning agencies and the relationship they have with key stakeholders like Southern research institutions. While conventional approaches to development assistance predominate, we argue that the literature on RCS over-generalizes and presents it in monolithic terms. In contrast, this study provides a typology of research commissioning practices and identifies several different modes of engagement. The key findings are that the structure of the relationship between donors and recipients, as well as the governance structures of the commissioning agencies, have a critical influence on RCS. The paper concludes with some recommendations for enhancing the role of donors and commissioning agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both policy and research contexts, internationalisation in African higher education is welcomed for its potential to strengthen local capacity and cautioned against for its potential to extend long-standing asymmetries of power in international partnerships. This paper examines two sets of developments which seek to re-orient internationalisation to allow for greater local control, local focus and local benefit. The one relates to a more formalised policy, planning and research approach to internationalisation and the other pertains to an intra-regional form of internationalisation under the influence of the Bologna process. The paper explores prospects for internationalisation on the continent to yield more equal North-South partnerships and to support the revitalisation agenda and its development priorities in higher education. It suggests that continuing lack of local capacity, continuing structural inequalities in partnerships, and insufficient interrogation of dominant concepts and models of internationalisation may still pose problems in moving towards an alternative internationalisation politics in African higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The challenges of urban areas and their authorities that have risen from decentralisation and public sector reform, ongoing urbanisation, and persistent poverty, call for new forms of urban governance. This paper considers the role of North–South city-to-city cooperation (C2C) in strengthening governance in cities in the South. As a decentralised form of development cooperation, city partnerships have the unique feature of involving a range of urban actors – with both an institution and a civic society background – as partners in C2C interventions and as the perceived beneficiaries of these interventions. It is therefore assumed that city partnerships can affect urban governance from different angles. The potential of city-to-city cooperation is explored as an instrument to improve local government performance in terms of administration, service delivery and level of responsiveness to community needs, while at the same time encouraging citizenship and citizen participation in urban decision-making. Both conditions are considered imperative to strengthening urban governance. To address this question, evidence is used from four case studies of North–South partnerships, involving cities in Nicaragua, Peru, South Africa, Germany and the Netherlands. Interventions are discussed and compared. Subsequently, an analytical framework is presented that indicates potential forms of C2C contributions to cities in the South and their governance processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In Germany, municipal development cooperation is currently facing big internal and external challenges. This article shows that in the light of these challenges, the future of German development policy on community level, especially of the city-to-city (city2city) cooperation, must lie in increasing its quality with regard to efficiency, effectiveness and its integration with the international development cooperation framework. After a short introduction regarding the role of communities in development cooperation, this article gives an overview of German municipal development policy. Contrary to the European trend towards more support for municipal development policies and activities, the German partnership activities still lack the necessary legal security and financial support. Consequently, their constructive contributions to their partners'' development are smaller than they could be under more favourable conditions. Subsequently, selected approaches of how to support community partnerships at the federal level are presented and will highlight some characteristics for successful cooperation. The far-reaching structural changes within the partner communities in the South, driven by manifold processes of urbanization, democratization, and decentralization, make it necessary for the partners in the North to adjust: to new mandated contacts, political structures and needs. This adjustment offers a chance for active German communities to make a constructive contribution to the partner communities'' situation and to assume a responsible role in international development cooperation as a third power next to the federal government and the states. The article concludes that quality enhancement is the only way for German city2city cooperation to make a productive contribution to the structural changes in the partner countries and gain more political support and expert recognition. Some possible criteria and benchmarks for quality evaluation are proposed to further spark the quality debate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the discourse on development cooperation through North–South partnerships, there is a lack of knowledge on the conditions for good partnering among local authorities to reach maximum potential for capacity building in municipal organisations. Findings are presented of an empirical study of a Dutch–Peruvian municipal partnership, discussing the conditions under which institutional strengthening has taken shape in the municipality of Villa El Salvador, Peru. It is argued that municipal partnerships have potential to be demand-driven, based on existing needs and facilitated by a high level of understanding between two institutions with similar characteristics. Northern counterparts can fill a niche to meet the capacity needs of Southern municipalities that may be excluded from international assistance, due to negative perceptions on working with public institutions in the South. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In early 2005, the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) and the University of Victoria's (UVic) Faculty of Education began collaborating on a project to teach participatory research (PR) via distance education. Written by the two course instructors from PRIA and UVic, this article documents the successes and challenges of this international collaborative project. We argue that figuring out how to live and communicate the values of PR in teaching is equal to meeting the content goals, and integral to the struggle of PR itself. Just as our partnership bridges university and community-based institutions in the Majority and Minority Worlds, so too are these differences reflected in the history of PR and in the learner composition of our classrooms. As such, we believe that the theory, practice, and struggle of PR are advanced through the example of our personal and ongoing commitment to reflexivity and relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vast majority of the world's population of children and adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) are born in low-resource settings, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and India. As a result numerous well-established, cost-effective, and evidence-based strategies for managing SCD such as newborn screening, early education, vaccinations, screening for stroke prevention, and treatments with safe transfusions and hydroxyurea are often unavailable, leading to substantial morbidity and increased mortality. Collaborations between high-income countries and these low-resource settings (North-South partnerships) have been advocated, with the goal of improving clinical care. Based on directives promulgated by the World Health Organization, we have developed a strategy of developing prospective research programs that focus on training, capacity building, and local data collection. This strategy involves consideration of important guiding principles, full partnerships, proper planning, and financial issues before program launch, after which rigorous program management is required for full effect and long-term sustainability. Ultimately these collaborative research programs should help create national guidelines and lead to improved clinical care for all children and adults with SCD., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)