Protecting Cropland in Malawi

By Chengxiu Li  Cropland expansion has become a common strategy for boosting agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, cropland expansion is not a sustainable form of agricultural development due to the environmental concerns it raises and the limited arable land available. We do not have a comprehensive understanding of …

Successful farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR)? Not without considering social equity

By Sebastian Reichel Achieving social equity in land and forest restoration is central to many international commitments and frameworks, including the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. A new study*, part of the special issue, ‘Restoration for whom, by whom?’, which was just published in the journal Ecological Restoration, is the …

New Publication: Effective project support for international research collaboration

By Helen Coskeran, Jon Lawn, Sithembile Mwamakamba and Gail Wilson There is growing recognition of the importance of international research partnerships in addressing some of the greatest challenges of our times. With the increasingly complex and fast-changing nature of many development challenges, such collaborations are seen as potential vehicles to …

University of Southampton Project Managers and Coordinators Network

By Jon Lawn, BRECcIA Project Manager I have been working in international development project management roles for nearly ten years now, moving through four large research projects at the University of Southampton, based in different faculties and with different funders. Over these nearly 10 years, I have met and kept …

Cradle to Grave: A research and programme management knowledge-sharing series

By Jon Lawn “I wish this had been around when I started in my current career” This was my summarising statement after we had finished delivering a three workshop series online in March 2021. Not wanting to blow our own trumpet, however even as a co-designer and presented in this …

BRECcIA Summer School policy session 2020 – Nairobi, Kenya

By Fiona Ngarachu BRECcIA’s Kenya team organised virtual and face to face sessions under the BRECcIA 2020 hybrid policy summer school, as did our Malawian and Ghanaian counterparts. The Kenya summer school was organised with both face to face and virtual sessions, with virtual sessions covering issues around writing policy …

Ghana: Assessing the Impact of Flooding on Water Sources, Livelihoods and Local Adaptation Measures

By Moses Asamoah Considering the importance of water and how its sources may be affected by flooding, a BRECcIA team of researchers set out to assess the impact of flooding on water sources and livelihoods in the Upper East Region and Northern Region of the Republic of Ghana. This was …

BRECcIA participates in the first SADC-WaterNet virtual symposium, was it of value?

By Catherine Kerapetse The impacts of the Covid_19 pandemic has without reasonable doubt affected the long-standing traditional ways of human interactions – who could have ever thought! Physical interactions were no longer permitted, forcing work to move to electronic and digital platforms, thus deeming remote working the new norm. Although …