The research examines how Finnish HEIs engage with other higher education institutions, communities, civil society organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), enterprises and governments to influence, integrate and/or address the needs for development in various food value-chains and their eco-systems, and further in food and nutrition security and education policy dialogue, especially in the context of the Global South.

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.

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

The overall objective of the project is to support Higher Education Institutions in Tanzania, Mozambique and Ethiopia to provide education that promotes sustainable socio-economic development. Application of renewable energy and adoption of energy-efficient lighting products and systems have the great potential to reduce the increasing energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ethiopia have large potential of renewable energy and energy saving by applying energy efficient techniques. The project will support the development of much needed technical expertise and experience in the field of energy efficient lighting.

Team

Pramod Bhusal

We are proposing a three component intervention including health education, a take-home reminder card and a shopping voucher aimed at reducing heavy lifting/carrying among pregnant women in Ghana.The purpose is to reduce the incidence of preterm Birth (less than 37 weeks) and low birthweight (less than 2500 g) which are currently high in the country. Access to funding to implement the intervention on a larger scale promises some solutions to the soaring numbers of adverse pregnancy outcomes in low and middle income countries.

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Professor Kimmo Räsänen, Dr. Jos Verbeek, Emma Kwegyir-Afful, Dr Lydia Aziato, Professor J.D. Seffah.

To support and strengthen the capacity of Hamelmalo Agricultural College (HAC) so that it can contribute to increasing agriculture productivity and enhancing environmental sustainability, through their education mission by meeting ecological, economic and social needs and by building of new multidisciplinary partnerships and networks and strengthening of the existing ones.

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Mohamed Elfadl, Semere Amlesom, Juha Helenius, Mike Starr, Markku Larjavaara

This work focuses on design, synthesis and optimization of optical nanostructures for SERS substrate for easy characterization of edible oils and subsequent detection of adulteration. Also a SERS-based model will be developed for easy and simple authentication and adulteration detection analysis.

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Prof Pasi Vahimaa, Prof Jyrki Saarinen, Dr. Tarmo Nuutinen, MSc Sampson Saj Andoh

The project Linguistic Variation as an Indicator of Historical Relations and Language Contact: A comparative grammar of four Mara Bantu languages (Tanzania) provides a description of four minority Bantu languages spoken in the Mara region of Tanzania. The aim is especially to study the effects of language contact in the region and its implications for historical-comparative research within Bantu as well as more generally in historical linguistics.

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Hannah Gibson, Antti Laine, Tim Roth

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.

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Christie Craig, Robert Thomson, Holger Kolberg

The project builds a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Ghana and it is a part of the bigger SOUTHMOD work, see https://www.wider.unu.edu/project/southmod-simulating-tax-and-benefit-policies-development.

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Robert Osei, Kwabena Adu-Ababio