From this week onward, we welcome GAP Fellow Dr. Lydia Kwoyiga from the University of Development Studies in Ghana to our Department of Agricultural Economics. 

Lydia's research areas span groundwater and local livelihoods, institutions and climate change adaptation, rural women and food provisioning, community-based ecotourism, sustainable development, and higher education. Keywords in her publications focus on disaster governance, groundwater governance, and (community-based) development.

Lydia will give a seminar at the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, on Monday, January 27th, at 3 p.m. Prof. Stijn Speelman will act as the discussant for her contribution.

We are delighted to invite you to the Diplomatic Lunch 2025, an exclusive event organized by the Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture for Belgium, Luxembourg, Africa, Caribbean, Pacific.

This unique gathering provides a rare opportunity to meet and engage with Belgian Ambassadors and their counterparts from key countries.

The 5th edition of the ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture, which will be held at the International Theater of Amsterdam on the 16th of February.

The lecture builds on Nelson Mandela’s thought legacy on democracy, social justice, human rights and international solidarity and will be held by a prominent African personality. This year we are especially pleased to have John-Allan Namu, a courageous Kenyan investigative journalist and social justice activist, who will engage with the values and importance of Nelson Mandela’s thinking in our current, globally challenging, day and age.

The African and European Research partnership on infectious diseases launches over €220 million in funding opportunities for 2025. The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) focuses on the major infectious disease threats facing sub-Saharan Africa.

Interested consortia are invited to submit a short proposal by March 2025 (first stage). Successful consortia will then be invited to submit a full proposal by September 2025 (second stage).

Info Days will be organised in the coming weeks.

Industrial mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) started in the early 20th century and has known ups and downs along with the price of metals, and the world demand.

This conference organised by the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences aims to bring together scientific research from multiple disciplines to take stock of the impact of mining and mineral processing so far, and identify the major challenges for the near future. The energy transition and technological innovations as well as geopolitical shifts and the presence of China in turn have a profound impact on the Congolese mining sector, which needs to be understood.

For a conference that will be held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, from 13 to 15 November 2025, we are inviting abstracts for papers on government involvement and concern for population well-being in later Antiquity (3rd-6th century AD). Selected papers from the conference will be collected in an edited volume on the conference theme.

We invite contributions on two key themes. First, how did the Roman state itself address issues of well-being—reactively or proactively? Second, how were issues brought to the state's attention by the general populace: through networks, petitions, or acclamations? What areas of population well-being were being addressed?

Every two years, the KBF Africa Prize rewards African organisations which contribute to transforming society and sustainably improving the lives of people in Africa.

Beyond its monetary value of 250.000 euros, it offers its laureates unique opportunities to increase their visibility and promote their cause to international audiences.

Rossella Marino (UGent Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy) will co-edit a book with Kamal Donko and Ernest Aniche by the provisional title "Debating the relevance of ECOWAS: a tool or an obstacle to decolonisation" edited by Springer for the United Nations University Series on Regionalism. This comes as a result of a dedicated workshop held on 15 October.

All chapter contributions must answer the question: Is ECOWAS a Tool or an Obstacle to Decolonization? Please make sure your chapter includes a critical reflection as to this question based on your specific empirical case, which must be relevant to ECOWAS.

IPORA (https://ipora.africa/en/) is an international transdisciplinary research network, created to study the major challenges facing the African continent and to find concrete solutions. 

The main governance body is the General Assembly, which will meet in Bordeaux (France) in April 2024. On this occasion, IPORA wishes to invite all public or private institutions interested in the Africa-Europe partnership to participate in a conference titled 'Strengthening Africa-Europe academic partnership (SAEAP) for improving intersectoral governance' and debate on the major issues, current or future research, good partnership practices and intersectoral governance.