The Global Partnership Network (GPN) is a group of universities and civil society organisations in 12 countries, including Burkina Faso. The network aims to take a critical look at international partnerships and their (neo)colonial baggage. In theory and practice, the GPN is committed to rebuilding the concept towards a partnership based on mutual recognition and solidarity, adapted to the multipolar and postcolonial 21st century.
In this spirit, the GPN has decided to name its doctoral scholarships after Thomas Sankara, an outstanding figure of the global South, whose ideas and practices of resistance to neo-colonialism and promotion of independent paths for the countries of the South are considered a source of inspiration for the work of the GPN doctoral school. The GPN awards 18 grants exclusively to doctoral students from the South, among them 16 at universities of the South in order to support especially the knowledge production in higher education in the global South.
Research topics of Thomas Sankara scholars are for example:
- The economic stakes of the post-1986 cycle of political crises in Haiti: neocolonial economic development programs and power struggles (Képler Aurélien, Université d’État d’Haiti)
- Ideology for food security? The Contest between Genetically Modified (GM) crops and Organic Farming as pathways to food security in Uganda (Victoria Kiboneka, Makerere University, Uganda)
- Territorial governance and gender: challenges and perspectives in Burkina Faso and Togo (Oladjigbo Katchoni Georges Koba, Université de Kara, Togo)
The GPN is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the Higher Education Excellence in Development Cooperation programme (exceed) of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Applications for Thomas Sankara Doctoral Fellowships are currently closed, but if the project is extended, there will be a call for applications for new Thomas Sankara Doctoral Fellowships in 2025.
Follow this link to read the press declaration on the naming of the stipends after Thomas Sankara:
Fiona Faye, former GPN graduate school coordinator, current PhD associated fellow at the GPN with the research topic: ‘Learning from Thomas Sankara: Food self-sufficiency politics as resistance against the neoliberal trade regime now and then.’
