1997-2011

Globalization has brought many challenges and opportunities to African countries in the areas of trade, healthcare delivery, energy, industrial development, governance, environmental management and civil infrastructure development. One persistent need has been capacity-building with respect to the integration of appropriate knowledge, techniques and policies from all global regions, including Africa, to address the diverse needs of specific countries and regions in Africa. For more than two decades, Prof. Inyang has been deeply engaged in the analyses of human capital and infrastructure development in Africa, as well as recommendation of policy frameworks.

1997- Under the auspices of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 1997, GISDAAD (under the leadership of Professor Hillary Inyang) led a group of four analysts to address the environmental assessment capacities of 42 African countries through country-specific studies and a site visit to the then AfDB headquarters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The recommendations that were presented in that report have been used by the AfDB in capacity building projects. In 1996, as the then Director of the Center for Environmental Engineering, Science and Technology (CEEST) of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell,

1995-1998: Prof. Inyang was commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Institute of International Education to host a colloquium of senior project/environmental program managers representing eleven Francophone African countries. The resolutions of that program led to the formation of the African Sustainable Development Council in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1998. Earlier on in September 1995 in Washington DC, he had contributed as an invited lecturer of senior executives of companies based in Africa and other regions on environmental impact assessment of projects, under the auspices of the USAID.

1996: Along with the late Prof. Odhiambo of Kenya who served as the President of the African Academy of Sciences, Prof. Inyang was a scientific/policy advisor to the Washington DC-based Constituency for Africa (CFA) in the early 1990s. They collaborated with CFA’s President, Mr. Mel Foote, to promote consensus in Washington, DC on support for technical programs in Africa. On September 11, 1996, Prof. Inyang addressed participants of the Ronald H. Brown Memorial African Affairs Series in Washington, DC. Upon his selection in 1992 in Boston, USA by the World Affairs Council and the

International Public Works Federation as the Eisenhower-Jennings Randolph Awardee (awarded to one winner from all member countries each year, to honor the international achievements of former US President Dwight Eisenhower), he initiated research and programme support on waste containment and dust control in Africa, starting from the provincial city of Uyo in Nigeria. His expeditions were subsequently sponsored by DuPont Corporation and Duke Energy Corporation. He expanded the scope and regional coverage of the program to include South America and Asia, where contaminant releases from wastes and dust pose significant health problems.   

2003-2006: Prof. Inyang has promoted capacity-building in Africa and supported several programs on Africa organized in non-African countries. Upon invitation in February 2003, he served as an evaluator of the biodiversity program of the Royal Museum for Central Africa based in Tervuren, Belgium. Along with Dr. Walter Amman of Switzerland and Dr. Daniel Don Nanjira of Kenya, he orchestrated the creation of mixed panels of African and non-African experts in Davos, Switzerland in August 2006, to address the ravages of natural and technological disasters in Africa before hundreds of stakeholders. Panelists included experts and policymakers from all parts of Africa. Participants returned to their respective countries to implement the techniques on which the received information. As the President of the Global Alliance for Disaster Reduction (GADR), he has collaborated with many organizations and experts to develop a strong Africa council within GADR through consultation trips to entities in Africa, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and organizational communications with African universities, public agencies, corporations and continental organizations. With the support of Swiss agencies, he collaborated with Dr. Walter Amman to select and sponsor leaders of African disaster programs to participate in workshop sessions on disaster mitigation held in Davos, Switzerland in 2006. Since 2007, he has been a contributor as an expert panelist, to the initiative on sustainable energy systems in Africa, organized by the International Council for Science (ICSU). The team is developing a comprehensive research program to address Africa’s energy needs within the context of global sustainable development.  

During his service in government, the private sector and several positions in academe, where he serves now as the Duke Energy Distinguished Professor and Director of the Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems (GIEES) of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA, he has played leadership roles in education, research supervision and professional advising of African students and professionals, among others, from several other regions. His students and post-doctoral advisees have come from Kenya, Cameroon, Liberia, Nigeria and Sudan while he has promoted the professional development of researchers from Togo, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan and other African countries. To counteract health hazards posed by dust during the dry season in SubSaharan Africa, Prof. Inyang pioneered the extraction and use of cassava starch as a dust suppressant and involved African students as researchers of this technique. Cassava is an edible plant that is cultivated widely in Africa. He has published several articles on dust control and the use of local materials in waste containment in Africa. For Nigeria in particular, he performed technical analyses on appropriate oil spill control techniques and policy framework (in 1999) which were subsequently used by Nigeria as the basis for the creation of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA). Some elements of his proposal that cover extension of oil spill control service to lower-capacity African countries in the region remain to be implemented.

In 2008, he has teamed with the United Nations University Program at Gwangju Institute for Science and Technology (GIST) led by Prof. Kim; and the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa led by Prof. Harmsen, to develop an international initiative for improving waste and wastewater management in Africa. Initial consultations with African institutions were held Abuja and Accra.

In September 2006, Prof. Inyang, serving in his role as the President of the International Society of Environmental Geotechnology (ISEG), collaborated with professionals worldwide and sought the support of African public agencies and the private sector to successfully organize the first International Conference on Infrastructure Development and the Environment in Abuja, Nigeria (ICIDEN-ABUJA 2006). Participants attended from more than forty countries. They discussed governance, disaster management, educational capacity-building, health, environment, regional conflicts, among many other issues. Some groups have formed partnerships to promote implementation of some recommendations that were made by panels at ICIDEN-ABUJA 2006. Prof. Inyang co-chaired the next event in Accra, Ghana in 2007 with Prof.Ernest Yanful, his Ghanaian colleague who is the Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. At the conference, he presented a short course on waste containment systems to Ghanaian public health officials, academicians and private sector representatives. Prof. Inyang has been a frequent contributor to African capacity building efforts at the policy, technical and social support levels. In 2011, he was selected by the International Council for Science (ICSU), Paris to serve on its committee for Africa, and subsequently co-chaired the Working Group that developed the African Science and technology agenda for the Rio + 2 United Nations summit. Upon selection by ICSU, he has presented this agenda at the United Nations in New York in late March, 2012. In 2011, Prof. Inyang was selected by the ICSU-Regional Committee for Africa as the Chair of the Implementation Committee of the Africa Science Plans.