ZEF signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Volta Basin Authority in Burkina Faso in April. The newly established Volta Basin Authority was set up by the six riparian states of the Volta river and serves the six governments concerned. ZEF has built a close working relationship with the Volta Basin Authority during the last year in the framework of its GLOWA Volta project in Ghana and Burkina Faso. The Volta Basin Authoriy is also a scientific endeavor to strengthen international efforts that are ongoing in the Volta basin such as by Green Cross International, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), UNEP, the EU, and the IUCN.

Desert*Net Germany, a network of German research institutions dealing with the issue of desertification, is now an official association in Germany which will be also officially registered soon. It will be registered under the name “Desert*Net Germany – German Scientific Network for Combating Desertification”. The founding institutions of Desert*Net Germany decided at their assembly in Bonn on April 13 to become an officially registered association. Fourteen member institutes out of 26 as well as two new research institutes joined the association already. The association is legally competent with immediate effect.

On April 12, the ZEF/UNESCO project in Urgench held an open day at the experimental site of Yangibazar. This site is part of the BMBF funded interdisciplinary project on “Economic and ecological restructuring in Khorezm, Uzbekistan”. The project is run since 2001. The aim of the open-day activities was to show and demonstrate research equipment to people working in the fields of agriculture and water management.

Transdisciplinary research on water in its physical, ecological, socio-economic, political, and legal contexts is an integral part of ZEF’s research agenda. The broad objective of ZEF’s water management research agenda is to arrive at integrated approaches. This can only be done in partnership and collaboration with actors in the “problem sheds” that are the subject of our investigations.

The new issue of the GIGA Working Paper Series, published by GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies / Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien (formerly German Overseas Institute) in Hamburg:

No 44 Andreas Ufen: Political Party and Party System Institutionalisation in Southeast Asia: A Comparison of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand; March 2007

CropSyst training-course at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) , University of Bonn, Germany, 16 – 20 July 2007.

Prof. Claudio Stockle, Biological Systems Engineering, Pullman, WA, USA, will give a one-week training course on simulating crop growth with CropSyst version 4.

ZEF’s International Doctoral Studies Program is being renamed into „Bonn International Graduate School for Development Research” (BIGS-DR). The BIGS-DR is a unique graduate program in Germany and Europe due to its scope and transdisciplinary set-up. The program’s concept is based on a practical, problem-solving scientific approach. The BIGS-DR combines the knowhow and capacities of the following three faculties of Bonn University: Philosophy, Agriculture, as well as Mathematics and Natural Sciences. Here are the latest “Facts & Figures" on the Program.