In November 2012, the PhD program on environmental planning, a joint program by ZEF and the University of Addis Ababa, organized a scientific excursion to the Blue Nile Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - the largest hydro-electric dam construction project in Africa.

Around 30 experts from urban planning and public health met in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on January 24, 2013, to link scientific output with practical experience. 'Are we getting crowded, thirsty and sick? Urbanization, water management and human health' was the title of this workshop that ZEF co-organized with the Indian Institute of Public Health in Gandhinagar

Professor Oded Stark, distinguished fellow of ZEF, was conferred an honorary doctoral degree by the Senate of the University of Warsaw, Poland, on December 12, 2012. ZEF congratulates Professor Stark on this great honor.

In ZEF number 26 you can read, among other topics, about tackling climate change in West Africa, improving irrigation management in Punjab, fostering agricultural growth among the marginalized and poor and you can the interview with the new junior professor at ZEF, Jan Börner.

The final report of the CODOC project is published. CODOC stands for Cooperation on Doctoral Education between Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe and deals with the growing international dimension in doctoral education. It was launched by the European University Association (EUA), ZEF and Karolinska Institutet (Sweden).

ZEF co-organized a session on "The economics of land degradation" with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)/GIZ at the first Global Soil Week held in Berlin, Germany, from November 18-22, 2012. The Global Soil Week is an annual multi-stakeholder event on sustainable soil and land management issues across the world.

The Pontifical Academy has about 80 members (http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en.html). The themes covered by the Academy include basic science issues, and also science related to human development themes, such as health, climate change, food issues.

The winners of the Upper East Ghana Farmer Innovation Contest 2012 were celebrated on Farmers’ Day in Paga, 2 November 2012. The first prize went to John Akugre Anyagre, a farmer from Tilli. The Farmer Innovation Contest was initiated by ZEF and implemented together with the Ghana Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA).

Two laureates of the Right Livelihood Award and 15 PhD students supported by DAAD are going to meet at ZEF on September 21-23, 2012. The two laureates are Dr. Helena Norberg-Hodge from India and Dr. Sulak Sivaraksa from Thailand. Watch the videos!

Alam Mondal from Bangladesh received the "ZEF Friends" Award for the best doctoral thesis written at ZEF in 2010-2011. Alam Mondal wrote his thesis about renewable energy technologies in Bangladesh (2010). His doctoral research was funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

ZEF co-organized the “Bonn International Summer School on Responsible Business 2012“, held from August 26 to September 1, 2012.

The international summer school brought together leaders and ‘agents of change’ with the goal of designing future responsible business solutions

More than 200 people participated in the panel "Soil, land and food security: the challenges for science, economics and policy" which took place during the Euroscience Open Forum 2012 in Dublin on July 13. Panelists were Prof. Rattan Lal, Dr. Ephraim Nkonya, Dr. Nicolas Gerber and Prof. Gretchen Daily.

The lecture "Vulnerable people, vulnerable states: redefining the development challenge" was held on Thursday, July 5 as part of the seminar series on "Risk and Uncertainty for Sustainable Development", which is co-organized by ZEF and the United Nations University (UNU) in Bonn.

ZEF alumna Judith Ehlert held a talk about her doctoral thesis "Beautiful floods. Environmental knowledge and agrarian change in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam" at the Faculty of Arts, Bonn University on June 30.

ZEF-director Joachim von Braun was invited as an expert to a hearing of the German federal parliamentary committee for Economic Cooperation on June 27. Topic was "The impact of speculations on the finance and capital markets on food prices, suggestions for containment in consideration of current EU proposals".

At the plenary session on "The fight for knowledge: Opportunities and risks of educational work in conflict and crisis zones" ZEF deputy director Conrad Schetter held the key note address. This year's Global Media Forum of Deutsche Welle in Bonn took place from June 25-27.

We sadly take notice of Prof. Elinor Ostrom's passing away on June 12. As a Nobel Prize laureate, a distinguished professor and director at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, now the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis and, above all, as a researcher and author of countless publications, she continues to influence ZEF's research agenda in developing countries.

Around 120 experts attended the annual meeting of the Research Committee on Development Economics and Policy of the German Economic Association (VfS) at ZEF on June 22-23, during which the KfW Prize for promoting practice-relevant development research was awarded to ZEF alumna Nadine Reis. Watch the interview here

Michael Ayamga tells about his doctoral studies at the Ghanaian-German Division for Development Studies, which is run by ZEF and ISSER and belongs to the five "Centres of African Excellence" initiated by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in 2008.

Anwar Fazal from Malaysia, Nnimo Bassey from Nigeria and Zafrullah Chowdury from Bangladesh, all laureates of the Alternative Nobel Prize, are guests at ZEF during the upcoming Right Livelihood College workshop week from June 2-10, 2012. They meet and work with 21 doctoral students from all over the world.