This was an education programme where we trained Namibian students to master-level in primary education.

Team

The Main goal of the SmartCom consortium is to develop, test and implement a concept of Smart Community for urban Africa together with the Namibian counterparts. The Project supports the development of Smart Community concept that is a societally and environmentally sustainable approach to urban development in Africa. SmartCom goes beyond the concept development and aims to provide tools, policy design and network to foster the emergence of business and innovation ecosystem between Finland and Namibia. The concept and policy design can be scaled-up to other countries later on.

Team

Mika Kautonen, Mika Raunio, Mika Nieminen, Veikko Ikonen, Virpi Oksman

Improving our understanding of human-environment relations, and particularly of human motivations, rationale and management regimes, is paramount to the success of any biodiversity conservation initiative involving local communities. By comparing approaches, challenges and successes across case study sites, this research aims to identify those contextual settings, socio-cultural traits, incentives, and practical tools that best foster optimum long-term integration of biodiversity conservation and local wellbeing.

Team

Anita Heim; Attila Paksi; Aina Brias; Marketta Vuola; Mohammad Mozumder

The two-year project NAMURBAN (Urban Resource Efficiency in Developing Countries) pilot study of Walvis Bay, Namibia is research work of Satakunta University of Applied Sciences (SAMK) from Finland and Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), Namibia. The research is aimed at developing a framework for urban resource efficiency utilization in developing countries using Namibia as a pilot country.

Team

Heikki Koivisto, Meri Olenius

The objective of the research and innovation staff exchange project is to contribute to solving the issues related to the youth unemployment in developing countries by developing participatory tools for human development that enable transformational change for the youth. Based on a service design approach, the project will provide tools for the marginalized youth suitable for daily use, enhancing regional democracy, increasing equal opportunities and contributing to human and service development with a particular target group: the San people, in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa and in the Omaheke region in Namibia.

Team

Satu Miettinen, Hanna-Riina Vuontisjärvi, Retha de la Harpe, Vikki du Preez, Heike Winschiers, Shilumbe Chivuno-Kuria, Tang Tang, Paul Wilson, Hennie Swart, Fabrizio Pierandrei, Silvia Remotti

General consultant role for the regional development cooperation project between Finland and SADC to support the development of NMHSs in the region and MASA to improve weather and climate services.

Team

Farmers using poison to control livestock predators is a major threat to vulture populations in Namibia and across Africa. In order to develop effective conservation strategies, it is important to understand the socio-ecological drivers that trigger poison use by farmers. While we know what these drivers are on the commercial farms of Namibia, the situation in the communal farmlands is not well understood. We aim to interview communal farmers in order to understand how frequently, why, which and how poisons are used. We will also assess the perception of communal farmers towards vultures and their conservation.

Team

Christie Craig, Robert Thomson, Holger Kolberg

Indigenous people who are historical creators of knowledge about food, are among the most impoverished, food insecure people of the contemporary world. This is often due to regulations over the usage of natural resources and very rapid changes in social settings, climatic patterns and cultural practices. This has significantly transformed the diets of indigenous people’s worldwide, non-exemption of the Khwe San indigenous people of Namibia. Today, not only are less food available to the Khwe, but also in reduced nutritional quality. The widely available processed foods and Food Aid deliveries have created dependencies and undermined traditional food systems and health.

Team

Prof. Juha Helenius, Dr. Aili Pyhälä

Bringing together advanced mobile voice-based technology, service providers and rural people of India in a tailored ecosystem is a unique project both in scale and in approach. Our project – RuralVoice – focuses on the development and deployment of voice-based services in agriculture, healthcare, education, entertainment and banking for the 220 million illiterate and underprivileged Indians that reside in the rural area. In our Indo-Finnish project consortium we are also building sustainable development and inclusive business opportunities for service- and technology companies both in India and in Europe. Keywords: Sustainable development, India, base of the pyramid, frugal innovations, voice-based services, illiterate people, mobile applications, participation, collaboration, localisation

Team

Mikko Ruohonen, Markku Turunen, Juhani Linna, Sumita Sharma, Nicholas Mavengere, Gururaj Mahajan, Jaakko Hakulinen, Pekka Kallioniemi, Vivek Kumar, Himadri Das (India), Amit Nanavati (India), Nitendra Rajput (India)

The primary objective of the PhD study is to understand and analyse the role that Traditional Ecological Knowledge plays in relation to the multiple domains of well-being among the youth of an indigenous, former hunter-gatherer tribe.

Team

Assistant Professor Pirjo Virtanen, Dr Aili Pyhälä, Professor Barry Gills