Transferring the necessary skills and building capacities for effective environmental management and fighting against some of the underlying causes of chronic poverty in Africa remains a subject of increasing importance and ACDEF is making it a cornerstone of its intervention. Our work currently focuses on two key aspects.

Training

In the absence of adequate training facilities and expertise locally, training African environmental resource managers and development professionals in western universities remains a common practice. Conversely, the environmental goods and services available in Africa as well as the challenges related to their management, constitute a real field laboratory for western students and researchers. In order to steadily build a strong local, national and international constituency in which members share the same goal, mission and vision, ACDEF is establishing a student placement and research opportunities programme. This scheme is a two-way system whereby suitable academic institutions are identified in the western world (UK and elsewhere in Western Europe and North America) and access to them facilitated for African students. In return, appropriate research opportunities and institutions are identified in Africa for western students and researchers in need of research and fieldwork experience.

Research