The fourth Virtual Exchange session of the second iteration for students was carried out on 4th December 2025. In total, 155 participants attended the online exchange.
During this session, the students enjoyed another interesting guest lecture before continuing their work on the sustainability action task. The guest speech was given by By Professor Cush Luwezi, Universite de Kinshasa (UNIKIN), Democratic Republic of the Congo (CD). Prof. Luwezi talked about ” Foresight in Agriculture, Food and Energy: Planning and Managing Water in the Changing Global Environment” . Cush Ngonzo Luwesi, Professor of advanced quantitative techniques in Environmental Economics at UNIKIN, is a director of Postgraduate Studies at AUMT, Gabon and the former Focal Region Manager of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE). He also holds PhD and MSc of Integrated Watershed management from Kenyatta University, and MA and BA of Economics and Finance from the University of Kinshasa (UNIKIN).
Luwesi described how fundamental access to clean water is for African society as parts of the country become more urbanized. He also stressed the importance of understanding the impacts of geoengineering and solar radiation management, particularly on the water cycle. This is an issue that concerns the entire African continent.
Find here You Tube video “Water management in Africa” by Prof. Cush Luwesi:
After this presentation there was time for a Q&A session was moderared by Professor Raphaël Tshimanga, Universite de Kinshasa, Kongo. For the last two hours students continued working on their sustainability action task. With the help of moderators and organizers Laure van Hoecke (KuLeuven) Julia Karhumaa (Univ.Helsinki) and Solomon Derese (Univ.Nairobi) they had group discussions on how the sustainability action task was going and how the guest lecture influenced their opinion.
The 5th, last, day of Virtual Exchange online events (all starting at 15:00 EET/Helsinki time) in Zoom takes place on 11 December 2025 with a guest lecture from Professor Solomon Derese, University of Nairobi on ”Catalysing Change across Continents: How Global Sustainability Advocates Drive an Ecological Circular Economy“
The DigiCampus area for registered students participating in the second VE is: Course: UH: UnaVEx Virtual Exchange 2 | DigiCampus.
UnaVEx main objective is to offer accessible, affordable and sustainable international on-line exchange opportunities to all students interested in Global Sustainability education. UnaVEx aims to increase environmental awareness, knowledge of the green transition and skilled in sustainability transformation of young generations and societies both in Europe and Africa. UnaVEx builds on the UnaEuropa on-line MOOC and virtual exchange workshops.
If you want to know more about the UnaVEx project, please visit our website or reach out to your local contacts here.