Link to current funding phase (2020 – 2024)

The interdisciplinary fellowship project "Livelihood Management, Reforms and Processes of Structural Change" is part of the Volkswagen Foundation initiative "Knowledge for Tomorrow - Cooperative Research Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa", which supports researchers who are based in sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative provides an opportunity to enhance academic qualifications and skills, and strengthens partnerships between African and German scholars by supporting the fellows to develop and extend their academic networks within Africa and beyond.
In its second phase (04-2017 to 09-2020), this project supports nine scientists from South Africa (3), Uganda (1), Kenya (2), Ethiopia (1), Burkina Faso (1), and Benin (1) to develop and conduct their own research projects during a period of three years.
The individual research projects deal with the question of how individual or collective social actors can manage and protect social-ecological resources efficiently and develop sustainable livelihood strategies under present economic, socio-political and environmental conditions and in view of locally and globally changing circumstances.
All projects have a strong focus on current questions and problems of their respective regions within Africa. Fields of interest are sustainable livelihood management strategies at communal or individual levels, thereby focusing on, e.g., non-state actors, local authorities, rural communities, farmers or micro-enterprises. Innovation processes, the conditions for success or failure of (new) resources management approaches, and the share and distribution of benefits are further questions that are addressed.