"It was exciting to travel to Sweden again, after several years. For my previous visits to Sweden, I was a sandwich PhD student at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala), Department of Economics. This visit was therefore special at both personal and work levels: I was coming back as a seasoned researcher, a heartwarming realization of how far I had come in academic and research progress since my PhD student days.
My trip happened to be at the warmest time of the year, and it was exciting to experience for the first time, the days when nighttime does not mean darkness!
I travelled to meet colleagues under two projects we commonly work on: The Drylands Transform Project and the Restore4More project, and to give a seminar at the Centre for Environmental and Resource Economics (CERE).
The Drylands Transform and Restore4More projects aim to provide novel insights into alternative solutions for sustainable transformation and development of rangelands in the Kenya-Uganda border region.
The Dryland Transform project connects land health, livestock-based livelihoods, human well-being, and land management and governance to enhance biodiversity, water and food security, and climate change adaptation and mitigation.
The Restore4More project aims to identify synergies within the biodiversity-water-climate nexus to further develop and enhance the restoration of degraded rangelands in East Africa's drylands. Both projects focus on the border region of Northeastern Uganda and Northwestern Kenya.
Together with the projects’ teams, we discussed and concretized plans for shared project activities including supervision of students, planned publications, work on ongoing manuscripts, future applications for research funding and smooth running of the current projects.
The seminar I gave at the Centre for Environmental and Resource Economics was entitled “Does pluralistic agricultural advisory service delivery enhance sustainable land management? Evidence from southwestern Uganda”. This is a key area for research, as Uganda endeavors to streamline provision of agricultural extension services, as part of the efforts to develop the agricultural sector. I received valuable inputs and comments on my work that have helped me to greatly improve the manuscript for publication.
I am very grateful for the entire team that made my visit memorable. I travelled on invitation from Professor Göran Bostedt, the Deputy Research Director of CERE, and a research colleague under the Drylands Transform project. The trip was gratefully funded by the Restore4More project, and CERE.
I was especially welcomed by Göran Bostedt, Aida Bargués Tobella, Agneta Hörnell, and the entire research team on the mutual projects. They warmly hosted me into their homes, gave me a taste of Swedish cuisine as well as a good view of Umeå landscapes during the warmest, brightest week in May - a memorable visit, indeed. The Drylands Transform project team made space for me in their schedules, fixing work meetings, and creating time to meet and chat about work and future opportunities that we could jointly benefit from."
Alice Turinawe, Makerere University, Uganda
