Evidence from Africa

Transnational higher-education partnerships involving African institutions have increased dramatically in number and complexity. Even more transnational higher-education partnerships (THEPs) are on the horizon. Among other advocates, the African Union has emphasized that the revitalization of Africa’s universities to play their critical role in development “will require partnerships not only with local and regional actors and stakeholders, but also with the universities, businesses and governments of the developed world” (NEPAD 2005, p. 21).¹ The informed pathway to participation in sustainable development through THEPs requires rigorous evidence-based analysis that will “provide a finer-grained sense of contextual specificities that is necessary for fleshing out the nature, limits, and possibilities of engagement for universities and other higher education institutions on the continent” (Singh 2007, p. 73; also Cloete et al. 2007, p. 13; King 2009, pp. 45–46).