Over the past seven months I’ve had the opportunity to visit four growing cities in eastern Africa: Kampala (Uganda), Nairobi (Kenya), Lusaka (Zambia) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). The importance of geoscience in delivering SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) was evident. “More than half of the world’s population now live in urban areas. By …[Read More]
Africa
Guest Blog: Could agroforestry do more to protect Rwandans from hazardous landslides?
Megan Jamer is a geoscientist from Canada, and an avid cyclist and explorer. Megan is currently travelling around East Africa on bicycle, taking in some remarkable sites and observing first hand the relationship between geoscience and sustainable development. Today Megan makes her debut on the GfGD blog site, writing on the relationship between agroforestry, landslides, …[Read More]
Guest Blog: Water of Life Project – Safe Drinking Water in Burkina Faso
Christopher Barry was the winner of our Blog Competition in 2012, with this article on safe drinking water in Burkina Faso. Christopher was privileged to be able to visit Burkina Faso prior to writing this, a very rural country where a great number of people are dependent on drilled wells with hand pumps for clean water. In …[Read More]
Guest Blog: GfGD UCL Event Report
Celia Willoughby, UCL Geography student and GfGD Ambassador, writes about a recent event… Wednesday 19th November, saw the first UCL GfGD lecture of the year, taken by guest speaker Prof. Richard Taylor. Professor of hydrogeology in UCL’s Geography Department, his most recent focus of research is the study of groundwater, and the effects of climate change …[Read More]
Guest Blog: Iphakade and Earth Stewardship Science from Africa
Jane Robb is the EGU Educational Fellow and Director (Policy and Research) at www.unboxd.co.uk. She has also served on the GfGD Executive Committee since 2012, first as our Communications Officer and currently as University Group Resources Officer – helping to develop resources to equip our growing University Group network. Today she writes about her recent experiences in …[Read More]
Volcanic and Biological Hotspots
Geology for Global Development followed Professor Iain Stewart’s BBC two TV series (June 2013), ‘Rise of the Continents‘ with interest. In the first episode, Iain mentioned something that really caught our attention – the strange volcanoes along the East African rift valley and their effect on soils and wildlife. Each year, as the rainy season …[Read More]
Building Scientific Technical Capacity in Developing Countries
The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology POSTnote Number 216 discusses the importance of building ‘Scientific Capacity in Developing Countries’. In short, this highlights how science and technology can play an important role in fighting poverty, disease and environmental degradation, and yet the numbers of researchers in the developing world falls well below other areas of …[Read More]
Guest Blog: What IF We Aren’t Helping?
Tim Middleton, GfGD’s Advocacy Development Officer, takes a critical look at this year’s IF campaign. This opinions expressed here are those of Tim, and not necessarily those of all involved with Geology for Global Development. As an organisation, however, we do believe that it is important to encourage debate on how best to undertake effective development. …[Read More]
Friday Photo (87): Wildlife in the Field – Lizards at Cape Point
A lizard chills out in the sunshine at Cape Point – the southernmost tip of the African continent. There is nothing between here and Antarctica. (c) Geology for Global Development 2013
Borehole Implementation in Tanzania: The Story of Kabalekela
Joel Gill writes about the implementation of a borehole in Kabalekela, a village in the north-west of Tanzania. In 2009 and 2010 I visited the village of Kabalekela in the Kagera region of Tanzania to observe the situation there with regards to access to clean and safe water. In short, the village severely struggled to access …[Read More]