Thursday, March 13, 2008

Monday, March 10, 2008

Deadline extension Transitions Conference

The deadline for abstracts for the Transitions conference has been extended until April 30th 2008. The conference takes place in Wageningen, 26-29 Oct. 2008.
For more information see http://www.agricultureintransition.eu

Train-the-trainer Workshop Cairo

The NeWater project and the Nile Basin Initiative together organized a workshop about adaptive management for people involved in the management of the Nile river basin. A very diverse African group of participants, from Egypt to Rwanda and Burundi, took part in the workshop, together with NeWater people from Belgium, Netherlands and Uzbekistan.

Thanks to the preparations of Fons Jaspers, the fluent Arabic of Koen Roest and the many helpful staff members of the training centre of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (including visa and passport helpers, drivers, sheet-turners, engineers and furniture carriers) the training went very well. It was an interesting occasion with the necessary enthusiasm and critical questions, turning it into a learning event for both trainers and participants.

We used the Podocarpus National Park simulation as a tool to learn about dealing with multiple actors and diverging frames, which led to lively negotiations and discussion about the feasibility of such an appraoch in a number of African cases.