Explore opportunities... for managing natural resources and a better life for all

September 11 - 13, 2024
organised by
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria

 

 

 

Anja has more than 25 years of experience in rural development projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, working at the interface of livelihood development and sustainable resource management. She joined World Agroforestry in 2010 as the head of the Research Methods Unit. She led the Sentinel Landscape Initiative 2012-2016, coordinating 10 teams across eight landscapes that provided evidence of the importance of forests and trees for the livelihoods of rural communities. Since 2017 she is leading a global policy project for integrating trees-on-farms targets into national plans to support governments’ commitments to the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity. She joined the Global Landscapes Forum as science and policy advisor in 2020. Anja has a PhD in Agroecology from the University of Braunschweig, Germany, and a master’s degree in Environmental Geochemistry from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feras Ziadat serves as a Land and Water Officer at the Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations (FAO), specialized in land resource management and planning. Feras earned his PhD in GIS and remote sensing for land use planning from Cranfield University, United Kingdom, and his MSc in land management and soil conservationfrom the University of Jordan. His passion lies in advancing integrated land and water management, facilitating participatory land use planning to enhance food security, combating land degradation and desertification in the face of climate change, conductingassessments and models for wind and water erosion, promoting soil conservation, exploring soil-landscape modelling, and advocating for sustainable land management to bolster resilience and livelihoods. Before his current role, Feras held the position of SeniorScientist in land management at ICARDA and served as an Associate Professor at the University of Jordan. Currently, he leads the coordination of FAO's flagship report, "The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture – SOLAW," andcoordinates the update of the "Guidelines for Land Use Planning". Furthermore, he chairs the UN Coalition on Combating Sand and Dust Storms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lerato Thakholi is a lecturer at the Sociology of Development and Change Group at Wageningen University and Research. Her research investigates the historical development of property rights in land and environmental resources and how this has evolved in tandem with shifts in labour regimes. Empirically, she has studied this in southern Africa using ethnographic and archival methods which have enabled her to capture the impacts of conservation land use on waged and unwaged workers. Theoretically, she is inspired by critical geographers and thus begins her work from the premise that capital produces spaces and labour regimes that are integral for its expansion and intensification. Themes that have been central to her work include: racial capitalism, spatial justice and social reproduction. Lerato is also a senior researcher in the Living Landscapes in Action project at the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The multi-year project seeks to create the basis for systemic redesign of the conservation sector in Southern Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

Nzula Kitaka is an associate professor and a researcher of “Aquatic/Water Science at Egerton University, Kenya. Prof Nzula Kitaka is the former director of the Board of Postgraduate Studies (BPGS) at Egerton University, from July 2016 to July 2022. She has supervised several master's and PhD students. She has published widely in referred journals, publications and book chapters. Currently, Prof Kitaka is the Vice President of Austria Africa-UniNet, a Research consortium of 50 African and Austrian Universities and a member of the Advisory Board for Water-WISER CDT, which is a consortium of UK Universities to train PhD students in WASH since 2019. She is one of the directors of Local Ocean Conservation (LOC-WTW) protecting Sea Turtles along the Kenyan coast.

Prof Kitaka has been involved in several collaborative projects as a PI or researcher. She is one of the founders of the 3 week “Tropical Limnology Course” in 2004, evolving to become one of the significant regional training for water scientists and managers initially as Limnology of Wetland Ecosystems (LWE) from 2009 to a Joint Degree in Limnology and Wetland Management (LWM) from 2012 to date, including newly launched Joint Master’s Degree in Ecosystem Aquatic & Ecosystem and Environment Management (AEEM) with Ethiopian universities majorly funded by Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC) which has resulted to formation of AQUAHUB Network (currently with more than 200 members). In 2013 & 2018, Kitaka partnered with Loughborough University in UK to host the 36th and 41st WEDC International conferences at Egerton University.

Prof Kitaka is a life member and a founding council member of the Eastern Africa Water Association (EAWA) as a secretary and later National Chair, launched in December 2003 with the support of the ADC. She was an active member of ARCA-Net Consortium: Alumni Raising Crises-&-Conflict Awareness in 2005-2010. In 2012-2014 Kitaka was one of the lead persons of the Info Dev Growing Innovator and World Bank project which created a collaboration initiative “East Africa Climate Innovation Network” (EACIN)

In 2007-2014, Prof Kitaka was a Scientific Advisory Council (SAC) member for the European Union Water Initiative European Research Area Network (ERA-Net) “SPLASH” project in water and sanitation, Council member of the Kenyan National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) 2010-2013 which transformed to “National Commision for Science & Technology (NACOSTI). In 2014 Kitaka was appointed a member of the National Steering Commitee for NETFUND Green Innovations Award. (NETFUND-GIA) under the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources.

 

 

 

 

I am professor in ‘Agricultural Water Management’ (‘Jordbrukets vattenhushållning och vattenkvalitet’) at Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala Sweden since October 2017. My research interests are in agriculture, soil health and water management, such as soil physical properties and functions, drainage, irrigation and storage for sustainable intensification in tropical and temperate regions. I currently explore agro-climatic trends about soil physical properties in rainfed systems, to better understand rainfed systems potential in future climate and food supplies, with empirical and modelling approaches. Over the last 25 years, I have worked with interdisciplinary agricultural, water and land management-related research, policy and development in sub-Sahara Africa and Asia with explicit outcome-impact orientation. My work regularly contributes to various international and national research and policy processes incl., including EU Mission Soil projects, the Swedish Environmental Advisory Council, FAO, and CG System institute on water, agricultural development and sustainability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a post-doc at the IPW in the field of International Politics, Johannes is also directly connected to the Latin America Research Network. Previously, he was Senior Expert in Green Transition Politics at the Centre for Social Innovation, Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna (2021/2022) and Research Professor in Environmental Politics at the Universidad de Las Américas in Quito, FLACSO and Polytechnic University of Ecuador (2016-2021). He has been simultaneously active in European election observation and development cooperation in Latin America and Africa for over 10 years. Johannes was a postdoctoral fellow at New York University (2015-2016), holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, and Master's degrees in Philosophy and International Development from the University of Vienna.

Research interests: Human Rights Politics in Andean Latin America; International Environmental and Disaster Politics; Green Transition and Sustainability Ethics, Research, Technology and Innovation as well as Development Cooperation in North-South Relations (focus on EU-LAC); Science and Diplomacy; Blue Economies and Coastal Community Management; Indigenous and Afro-Andean Well-Being.

 

 

 

 

Johanna Jacobi leads the Agroecological Transitions research group at ETH Zürich. She studied Geography, Biology and Social Anthropology at the University of Freiburg. For her PhD studies at the University of Bern, she researched with the organic cooperative El Ceibo on the resilience of cocoa farms in Bolivia to climate change. After a postdoctoral project at the University of California, Berkeley, on agroforestry, she lived and worked in Bolivia for several years, researching food system sustainability and resilience in Latin America and Africa. Her research focuses on agroecology as a transformative science, a practice and a social movement using participatory action research, transdisciplinary methods and approaches from political ecology.

 

 

 

 

Achille Ephrem Assogbadjo is born on 03rd May 1974 at Savalou in the Republic of Benin. He is an agronomist and forester interested in non-timber forest products and orphan crops. He holds a PhD in Applied Biological Sciences (Ghent University, Belgium). He is a Full Professor of Conservation genetics, Forest ecology and Ethnobotany at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin. He doubles as a visiting Professor at Université Félix Houphouët Boigny in Côte d’Ivoire, University of Costa Rica in Costa Rica, University of Florianopolis in Brasil and Chuo University in Japan. Professor Achille Ephrem Assogbadjo has earned international renown for his outstanding contributions to biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource management across Africa. With an H index of 45 on Google Scholar, the research of Professor Assogbadjo encompasses a broad spectrum, among others, utilizing ethnobotanical and conservation genetics methodologies in ecosystems ranging from natural settings to agroforestry and intensive farming practices. As a globally recognised expert in the diversity and utilisation of the African baobab (Adansonia digitata L.), he has revealed the intricate interplay between genetics and morphology across varying climatic zones. Professor Assogbadjo's innovative approaches to managing underutilised plants revolve around community engagement and traditional knowledge, emphasising a holistic approach. To date, Professor Assogbadjo has been granted 12 International prizes and awards, including the Georg Forster Research Awards provided by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), and the Young African Research Award provided by the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) of Egypt. He has been nominated for the honorary title “The Name in Science” by decision of the Socrates Committee (Oxford, United Kingdom), recorded in the World Register of Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century with awarding a Medal of Frame for Contribution to World Science. Prof Assogbadjo has to date won 25 research grants and 10 regional or international research projects, participated to more than 150 international conferences and 20 training workshops in Africa, Europe, South and North America, Asia and Middle East. He has contributed to 248 peer reviewed papers and 26 books. Prof Assogbadjo is belonging the National Academy of Sciences of Benin and to more than 20 scientific networks and research groups worldwide.