On 11 May 2026, the Collaborative Research Centre TRR 228 Future Rural Africa: Future-making and social-ecological transformation celebrated the kick-off of its third funding phase (2026–2029) with a reception at the Universitätsclub in Bonn.
The event opened with welcoming remarks by the CRC’s spokespersons, Prof. Dr. Britta Klagge and Prof. Dr. Michael Bollig, followed by a keynote address by James C. Murombedzi, former Coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre (UNECA), Addis Ababa.
The programme also featured a presentation of the book African Futures in the Making, a volume edited by Michael Bollig and Detlef Müller-Mahn, examining how climate change, globalization, and new resource management practices are transforming rural land use and societies in sub-Saharan Africa.
The first two funding phases examined how conservation, agricultural intensification and infrastructure development drive land-use change in rural Africa, focusing on their effects on local communities and their practices of future-making. Building on these findings, the third phase places financing at the centre of its research to investigate how global financial flows, domestic funding and shifting political and economic dynamics shape social-ecological transformation and competing visions of the future.
