Higher education institutions and lifelong learning opportunities offer important skills and knowledge for developing the complex, sustainable, and integrated solutions that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require. Utilizing interview data from a retrospective study of 14 African alumni of a US public land-grant institution, this research explores alumni’s lived experiences to understand how their graduate education contributed to post-graduate civic engagement activities that are aligned with the SDGs. Each individual’s social, civic, and political experiences are mapped along a spectrum of political and civic engagement to provide a foundation for drawing out the types of capacities developed. We contend that developing greater capacity for civic engagement may contribute to sustainable development as outlined in SDG 4.7. Findings indicate that while alumni experiences varied, the majority of alumni had greater engagement post-degree. Core capacities developed among alumni, which may have contributed to this engagement, include researchers’ empowerment through development of hard and soft skills, expanded networks, and enhanced confidence for graduate students both intrinsically and because of the credential they achieved.

高等教育机构和终身学习机会为开发可持续发展目标（SDG）所需的复杂，可持续和综合解决方案提供了重要的技能和知识。该研究利用对美国一家公共土地资助机构的14名非洲校友的回顾性研究的访谈数据，探索了校友的生活经历，以了解其研究生教育如何为与可持续发展目标相一致的研究生公民参与活动做出贡献。每个人的社会，公民和政治经验都根据一系列的政治和公民参与情况进行了映射，从而为确定所发展的能力类型提供了基础。我们认为，如SDG 4.7所述，提高公民参与能力可能有助于可持续发展。调查结果表明，尽管校友经历各异，但大多数校友在学位后的参与度更高。校友之间发展的核心能力可能有助于这种参与，包括通过发展软硬技能，扩展网络，增强研究人员的能力，无论是从本质上还是由于他们获得的证书，对研究生的信心。