Almost 50 members of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 228) “Future Rural Africa” took part in a retreat from 6th to 8th of November in the Eifel monastery Steinfeld. They took advantage of the remoteness of the medieval monastery to draw conclusions from their work to date and above all – in keeping with the theme! – to look towards the future. Cooperation partners from Namibia, Tanzania and Kenya also adivised the consultations. Many interesting new results are already emerging at the intersection of the research work of various sub-projects and disciplines.
In southern Africa, for example, the focus is on how tourism and nature conservation market “wilderness” as a commodity and what consequences this has for the local population. The projects in Tanzania deal with the large-scale SAGCOT project, an agricultural growth corridor that was centrally planned but leads to contradictory results in rural areas. In Kenya, the project examines, among other things, which conflicts are associated with the planning of a development corridor that will cross the entire country. In addition to geographers, scientists from the agricultural and cultural sciences also conduct research in the CRC. Together we are looking forward to the second term and the future of the CRC 228.