Contents
Dr. Martin’s Research project has been awarded under the SUA research and innovation support (SUARIS) 2ND phase competitive research and innovation grants for year 2021/2022 for SUA staff. The title of the research project is, “Analysis of Electronic Waste Management Practices in Tanzania: The Case of Selected Urban Areas. ” The proposed amount is Tanzanian shillings 29,500,000. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services are a prerequisite for socio-economic development of any society in today’s world. ICT provides easy access to information, knowledge, and experience, and hence empowers people to tackle the challenges of everyday life more efficiently. ICT is also vital for economic development and good governance including gender balance, poverty reduction, and improvement of health and education services. However, the fast-growing use of ICT and rapid turn-over in technology (particularly computers, mobile phones, etc.) is creating a growing e-waste stream not only in industrialized but also in developing countries like Tanzania. According to NBS (2019) e-waste generation has increased from about 2 000 tonnes in 1998 to 35800 tonnes in 2017. Further, mobile phones subscriptions have increased drastically from 13.1 million in 2008 to 43.6 million in 2018. The challenge of e-waste is even of greater concern in Tanzania and other developing countries because the majority of these countries lack the capacity for handling and recycling the hazardous materials contained in e-waste. Tanzania has neither specific policy nor law on e-waste management ( NBS, 2019). The rapid growth of Tanzania’s major cities such as Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, Dodoma, Tanga, and Mbeya do not match with the e-waste handling capacities. One strategy attempted by the cities of Mwanza and Dar es salaam is the application of non-conventional approaches to the delivery of waste management services. There is little information available about their performance in terms of the extent, quality, and capacity of e-waste management services. The magnitude, flow of e-waste generation and impact of e-waste in the cities of Dar es salaam and Mwanza are not well known. Only a few studies present rough estimates of the installed base of computers and e-waste generated and only analyze stakeholder set-up in Dar es Salaam. Tanzania is also not immune from e-waste generated elsewhere because the Basel Convention has failed to protect developing countries from being treated as dumping sites for e-waste (Widmer et al, 2005; Andrews, 2009). Within that milieu, Tanzania as one of the developing countries, which typically import used electronic equipment is at a greater risk. Moreover, inadequate information on the existing practices and strategies on e-waste management is a concern to all interested parties in the country. Therefore, there is a need to investigate the practices in the management of e-waste across major urban centres of the country whereby in this case Dar es Salaam and Mwanza have been selected to study how they manage e-waste are generated. Finally, since industrialization is inevitable in Tanzania, and that industrialization goes hand in hand with technology, the massive generation of e-waste is projected to rise. Hence context-specific strategies and capacities for dealing with the challenge need to be in place as soon as possible.
Prof. BukenyaThe Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP) Advisory Council has selected Dr. R. Madaha and Prof. J. Bukenya’s (see the photo) proposed project for funding. The Winter 2022 application cycle for the CADFP was very competitive, and the department is proud of the accomplishment. Prof. Bukenya works at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU) located in USA. Following the selection of the project Dr. Madaha participated in a CADFP Virtual Pre-Departure Orientation held on Wednesday, 11 May 2022, from 11:00 AM –12:00 PM EDT. The link to the full video recording of the orientation webinar here: https://youtu.be/2Vj4fvqQWmE Details about the project are presented below: Project Title: Co-Develop New and Strengthen Existing Curriculum in Community Development and Agricultural extension Goal: The main objective is to boost the ability of the department to offer student-centered courses Project Impact: The short-term and long-term outcome is to improve the quality of the delivery of student-centered courses in line with SUA’s vision. The fellow will have an opportunity to form long-term ties with the department for other academic collaborations in the future. The collaboration will also pave way for other staff from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU) to collaborate with SUA. Sustainability: We envision collaborating with the fellow and Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University in research and other academic exchanges. The department has developed a platform to host students and faculty to come and do their research. Dr. Bukenya will help the department attract students and faculty from his institution to come be hosted at the department.
Postgraduate Research Fellow 
Dr. Emma is currently pursuing a three-year postdoc project entitled “Visualizing the future – charting pathways for sustainable development with participatory art and scenario thinking”, which will be based at the DAECD at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania. The program also involves visits at LUCSUS at Lund University, and IFRO at Copenhagen University. She is a physical geographer and sustainability scientist with an interest to develop and apply interdisciplinary research approaches to understand complex sustainability challenges. The three-year postdoc project aims to combine and develop methods of participatory art and scenario thinking to generate viable future visions, and a range of pathways for development. She has also developed visions in the Swedish context of farming and carbon sequestration, and will continue to focus on how to scale up agroecological initiatives in Tanzania. The ultimate purpose of using art in the scenario process is to create viable development pathways based on local concerns and aspirations, and as a communication tool for presenting challenges and opportunities under different futures. Previously, she was engaged in a research project where she estimated changes in terrestrial carbon in Cambodia. Cambodia is a country that is experiencing rapid and extensive deforestation that can be partly linked to land grabbing. She mapped the changes in carbon pools in space and through time, and also mapped where the carbon loss is virtually export. For her PhD thesis she applied mixed methods to analyze ‘land grabbing’ from a global to local scale. The global to continental scale of analysis is quantitative and relates to the global connectivity of land acquisitions and changes in water supply and demand, while the local studies are qualitative and use participatory art to understand local perceptions of socio-environmental change, and future aspirations for change. Teaching Her teaching generally focuses on quantitative tools and methods related to geographies of change. But more recenty she has been the course coordinator for the LUMES course Earth Systems Science, which is a bridge beween key concepts in physical geography and how such knowledge is important for sustainability science. She has also held several lectures about participatory methods and the use of art. Below is a selection of courses that she has been teaching over the past 4 years.
Scientific Illustrations She also have a particular interest of visualizing science as graphs, maps, paintings, and even stop-motion movies. A nice illustration is a good and efficient way to catch someone’s attention and communicate your scientific results. She is part time freelancing as a science illustrator, so if you need help with tables, charts, figures, maps, or other visualizations, don’t hesitate to contact her at [click here].
The project aims at undertaking multi-disciplinary demand-led research contributing to enhancing livelihoods and sustainable environment in rural communities through principles of Agro-Ecological Intensification (AEI).
COGENT represents an inter-disciplinary approach to improving household food security and nutrition-related health outcomes among women and children in the face of climate change in selected areas of Ethiopia and Tanzania. Over the past decades, growing investments have been made in developing climate services that can reduce societal vulnerabilities and enhance adaptation and resilience to the impacts of climate variability and change. Yet the development of climate services, in Africa and elsewhere, rests on several assumptions. First, providing more and better climate information will enhance the uptake of this information in decision-making. Second, the application of climate services will lead to improved development outcomes. While a growing body of research documents the potential for climate services to improve local livelihoods and climate risk management strategies, considerable knowledge and capacity gaps continue to hinder the co-production, communication, and uptake of socially equitable and gender-responsive climate services, undermining their potential impact. COGENT will advance understanding of the key mechanisms that facilitate the co-production of usable climate information in two African case studies, with the potential to improve the quality of climate services across other African contexts. Working together with local climate service practitioners in Ethiopia and Tanzania, the project will generate knowledge that can help to address critical social, technical, and institutional aspects that currently limit the co-production of usable and actionable climate services by men and women farmers in the two countries.
The project aims to strengthen the long-term capacities of local institutions to undertake high-quality, policy-relevant research, while simultaneously building new interdisciplinary networks and collaborative experience and expertise within the climate research community in Norway. Project Duration: 1½ years: from January, 2022 to June, 2023 Funding Agency: Norwegian Research Council (Norway) Principal Investigator: Prof. D. L. Mwaseba, (SUA) Project Status: Ongoing Project