Professor Patience A. Abor, who made the call, said universities had a critical role to play in developing the skills, technologies, institutions and entrepreneurial capabilities needed to build climate-resilient African economies.
She said Africa should not aspire merely to participate in the global green transition but position itself to help shape and lead the process.
Delivering a keynote address on the topic, “Entrepreneurial Universities and Capability Building for Green Transitions,” at iCAD2026 in the United Kingdom, Prof. Abor said climate-related challenges facing the continent highlighted weaknesses in planning, infrastructure, institutional coordination and policy implementation.
She cited recurring floods in Accra and other parts of Ghana, the devastating floods that affected 34 of Nigeria's 36 states between May and October 2022, prolonged droughts in Somalia and northern Kenya, and coastal erosion in Saint-Louis, Senegal, as examples of the growing environmental pressures facing African countries.
According to her, such occurrences should not be regarded merely as natural disasters, but also as evidence of gaps in urban planning, land and water management, development regulation and the translation of research into practical solutions.
She said the challenges also presented an opportunity for African institutions to develop innovative responses that could address local problems and generate knowledge with global relevance.
Prof. Abor observed that while Africa's contribution to the global green economy was often discussed in terms of its natural resources, including gold, oil, lithium and manganese, the continent's greatest strategic assets were its people, institutions, researchers and entrepreneurs.
She said effective solutions to urban flooding, drought, renewable energy access, climate-smart agriculture, waste management and coastal adaptation could position Africa as an important contributor to global sustainability efforts.
Role of universities
Prof. Abor explained that an entrepreneurial university was not simply an institution that taught entrepreneurship, but one that translated knowledge into societal value by connecting research to industry, evidence to policy, students to innovation and ideas to practical implementation.
She identified human capability development as one of the major requirements for Africa's green transition.
She said the continent needed engineers, urban planners, economists, environmental scientists, lawyers, agricultural specialists, public health professionals, data scientists and entrepreneurs equipped with the knowledge to integrate sustainability into development.
She, therefore, called for sustainability to be incorporated across university curricula rather than treated as an elective subject.
On innovation, she said universities must develop locally appropriate technologies instead of relying heavily on imported solutions designed for different economic and environmental conditions.
She mentioned affordable renewable energy systems, climate-resilient housing, sustainable transport, circular economy models and digital tools for environmental management as areas requiring increased research and investment.
Prof. Abor proposed that communities should serve as living laboratories where researchers and students could identify real-life challenges, test solutions and develop innovations for wider application.
She also highlighted the need for stronger collaboration between universities and industries to promote local manufacturing, engineering expertise, maintenance skills and the development of green industrial value chains.
She cautioned that Africa's green transition should not be limited to exporting raw materials and importing finished technologies.
Instead, she said, the continent must develop the capacity to manufacture and maintain its own technologies while creating decent employment opportunities for its growing youth population.
Policy and institutional support
Prof. Abor further identified policy and institutional capacity as essential to achieving sustainable development.
She said many environmental initiatives failed not necessarily because of technological limitations, but because of weak coordination, unclear regulations and inadequate institutional capacity.
Universities, she said, must strengthen their partnerships with governments, regulators and public agencies to support policy formulation, regulatory development, public-sector training and programme evaluation.
She also stressed the importance of integrating public health, environmental science, engineering and urban planning into university research and training.
This, she explained, would help address the effects of climate change on productivity and livelihoods, including heat stress, air pollution, water scarcity, food insecurity and the spread of diseases.
She urged universities to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability through their own operations, describing campuses as potential living laboratories for green innovation.
Such campuses, she said, should increasingly adopt renewable energy, microgrids, energy storage systems, water harvesting and recycling, sustainable waste management, climate-responsive buildings and environmentally friendly transport systems.
She explained that these initiatives would provide students with practical opportunities to understand and apply sustainable practices while allowing researchers, policymakers and industry partners to assess solutions in real-life settings.
Call for collaboration
Prof. Abor called on governments to regard investment in higher education as a strategic means of building national capabilities rather than merely a recurrent expenditure.
She also urged industries to become active partners in knowledge creation, development partners to prioritise long-term capacity building, and communities to be recognised as important contributors to the development of sustainable solutions.
She said universities must also reconsider how their performance was assessed, arguing that academic publications alone were insufficient measures of their contribution to national development.
Other indicators, she said, should include policy impact, technology transfer, start-ups, patents, industrial partnerships and contributions to societal resilience.
Prof. Abor concluded that the future of Africa's green transition would depend not only on the technologies adopted but also on the capabilities developed in people, institutions, industries and governance systems.
She said African universities must position themselves at the centre of the transition as engines of innovation, partners in policymaking, builders of resilience and catalysts for inclusive and sustainable development.
