INTERFACES and the four regional projects, COINS, DecLaRe, InfoRange and Minodu came together at the Tropentag Conference from 11 to 13 September in Vienna to, among others, delve into knowledge management for sustainable land use in Sub-Sahara Africa.
© Aiveen Donnelly – Pre-Conference Workshop
Benjamin Abugri represented the partner organisation, FARA, and gave a keynote speech. Further presentations were delivered by IDOS colleagues Michael Brüntrup and Theodore Asimeng (INTERFACES) as well as Marcelo Inacio da Cunha (Klimalog Project). The project leads of the programme Sustainable Land Management in Sub-Sahara Africa have chosen the Tropentag Conference as a strategic platform for yearly in-person exchange across the regional projects as well as with further interested conference participants. This year another pre-conference workshop was organised with the purpose for participants to gain a clearer picture of the entire process of knowledge co-creation and innovation generation, and how the services of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) can be used to enhance individual research, systemic innovation processes and influence policy decision making in and for Africa.
Exemplary of this, the over 60 workshop participants enjoyed presentations by three certified knowledge managers, including Dorcas Sanginga Alame, Melika Vodounhessi and Dr Kisito Gandji. The Knowledge Management for Agricultural Development (KM4AgD) Challenge is organised by FARA. Their inputs were then opened to the audience in a fishbowl style discussion. Further inputs were given by the regional projects on progress on their own knowledge products. Friederike Froebel from Minodu demonstrated the use of a local community network in rural Togo with IT-equipment adapted to the rural area, including a Raspberry Pi. Dr Lilli Scheiterle from InfoRange provided an update on the co-development of their veterinary app. Dr Deogratias Agbotui from DecLaRe gave a presentation on their innovation, fertiliser microdosing cereal of crops.
Presentation by Theodore Asimeng, ©Benjamin Abugri
In addition to the pre-conference workshop, IDOS researchers delivered presentations. Dr Marcelo Inacio da Cunha shared his research work as part of the Klimalog project on ‘Rights-based access for leaving no biodiverse area nor anyone behind: Deliberative protected area councils in Amazônia’ in the session on “Non-timber forest products”. Dr Theodore Asimeng presented his research work as part of INTERFACES on the concept of “Follow-the-Innovation” in the session on “Technological innovations for implementing the SDGs”.
Next year’s Tropentag in Bonn will be organised by the Centre for Development Research (ZEF) and the Institute of Crop Sciences and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn.
The activities of the accompanying project INTERFACES and the four regional projects, COINS, DecLaRe, InfoRange and Minodu are funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the platform strategy Research for Sustainability (FONA). Further information on the projects can be found on our website and on the FONA-Website. The Klimalog project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
