Research by SDG

The Colombian hydroclimatologist Daniel Ruíz Carrascal is one out of only three IPCC authors from Colombia. He has dedicated his life to studying climate change, especially in the mountains and the páramos (the moorlands). And he is worried about the future - he doesn’t have a clue what will happen with those fast and important changes.

Most young people are becoming increasingly aware of their environmental impact, making sensible decisions on a daily basis, to reduce their carbon footprint, and to improve upon their self-sustainability. This involves continuously implementing sacrifices into daily life, for the benefit of the planet. Unfortunately, choosing to spend part of your summer at a festival can be a huge strain on your overall footprint.

Many Ugandans are quick to identify themselves by tribe - 56 tribes there are in total. They like to describe themselves, and are also often described by others, as humble, welcoming and peaceful but Uganda’s political history hardly reflects the peaceful part. When I visit Associate Professor Charles Amone on a July afternoon, Kyambogo University is in recess so it is generally quiet. His reflections paint a picture of a country less united than the world may be led to think – a crisis that fuels inequality and conflicts from within.

Meet a Colombian scientist, passionately researching about the pink river dolphin, a crucial species to protect aquatic ecosystems in the Amazon. The enormous habitat of those border-crossing dolphins makes them a key-species to protect big areas. If they are well, so is the Amazon. And when the Amazon is on fire, it affects species like the dolphin, as well.

Graduate students of the London School of Economics and Political Science gathered at Kenya’s coast in September 2018, where the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Dr Mukhisa Kituyi told them: “With your international credibility, it is easier and tempting to leave and take out of the continent the little intellectual resource that could solve problems their countries face.”

A dusty road leads me to Pece Primary School on the outskirts of Gulu town, a city in the northern Uganda. Just opposite the school, is a signpost that reads: “Gulu University Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies [IPSS].” It points towards a sizeable block sitting on an enclosed acre of land. The building’s cream walls and green roof have greyed due to age, Dr. Stephen Langole is a social scientist, who has studied different aspects of post war life in  northern Uganda. This time we are going to talk about his PhD thesis, UrbanYouth in Post-conflict Northern Uganda: Networking Livelihood Resources.

One of Uganda’s key concerns in education over the years has been the growing rift in performance between urban and rural schools. Primary and Secondary school grades in the national examinations largely tend to decline with distance moved from the country’s capital, Kampala. Solutions to bridge this gap and restore parity, however, could be in a book gathering dust in Gulu University’s library. Dr. Stephen Odama is fully aware that the knowledge in his PhD thesis could go unutilised, the way of most academic research in Uganda, unless there is publicity and awareness about his findings and recommendations.

Standing at the entrance of the Faculty of Medicine at Gulu University, Dr. David Musoke looks a calm man. He has been waiting here for some minutes to receive a journalist from Kampala with whom they have only interacted through...

Consumers and the broader public have been more and more interested in what organic and sustainable agriculture can offer, namely, pesticide-free food and reduced environmental impact. The overuse of pesticides as a strategy to prevent disease has raised concerns with farmers and scientists, too, as resistant diseases are on the rise.

Researcher Abdel García from Humboldt Center, one of Nicaragua’s most renowned environmental institutions, is passionate about involving local population in climate change adaptation research. “In the near future Nicaragua as a country where people live, might stop existing,” he fears