Three Ghanaian students visiting Germany

"We are really impressed by the way we were welcomed and treated during our stay in Germany", says Hezekiel Clottey from Ghana. "It offered us the possibility to build up a lot of contacts with key figures in the fields of science and development cooperation." Hezekiel is one of three PhD students participating in the newly established Program for Development Studies in Accra, Ghana, run by ZEF and the Institute for Statistical and Economic Research (ISSER). The Program is a Departments of the Ghanaian-German Centre for Development Studies and Health Research, one of five Centres of Excellence in Africa sponsored by the DAAD and the German Ministry for foreign Affairs.

The three Ghanaian students Hezekiel Clottey, Michael Ayamga and Irene Ampaabeng have been visiting ZEF and Germany during the pasts six weeks to gain an impression of German academic and development-policy organizations. "It really was a good opportunity to get to know better how things are organized and structured at a university institute here", says Michael Ayamga. "It made it clear that we still have some way to go with developing high quality research and science in Africa. However, thanks to institutes such as ZEF, focusing on building capacities in and for the developing world and supporting initiatives such as the Program for Development Studies, we are making enormous progress."

The six-week stay in Germany was part of the three-year Program of Development Studies at the DAAD Excellence Centre in Ghana. The six-week trip took the Ghanaian students to the main institutions dealing with development research and development cooperation in Germany, such as InWent, the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Also included in the program was an active participation in research seminars as well as an exchange with scientists at ZEF and the University of Bonn.