PlanAdapt hosts Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow from Botswana

PlanAdapt hosts Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow from Botswana

The team of PlanAdapt is delighted to welcome Chandapiwa Molefe!

Chandapiwa is the first Research Fellow, supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and its International Climate Protection Fellowship, to be hosted by PlanAdapt. In the coming twelve months, Chandapiwa will conduct a pilot study focused on enhancing equitable and gender-sensitive adaptation to climate change in government systems in Botswana. The overall objective is to develop a practical tool to support gender mainstreaming in climate change adaptation and development planning for the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, and the Ministry of Agriculture in Botswana. To achieve this goal, Chandapiwa seeks to identify how strategies from different institutions and different levels of government incorporate gendered climate change adaptation goals. She also wants to understand the extent to which stakeholders are involved in the development of various climate change adaptation strategies and whether they have a voice.

Chandapiwa is one of 22 Research Fellows and prospective leaders from the Global South that work academically or practically in climate protection or climate-relevant resource conservation in their respective home countries. On 8 and 9 March, the Humboldt Foundation hosted Virtual Introductory Days for the start of this year’s programme during which the various Fellows and their research projects were introduced and networking sessions between Fellows and hosts across the programme were held (see also screenshots).  The overall objectives of the Fellowship are closely related to PlanAdapt’s mission and our commitment to action-oriented research and research-for impact approaches. The Fellowship is an opportunity for future decision-makers from the Global South to share knowledge, methods and techniques with specialist colleagues and develop long-term contacts and collaboration with colleagues in Germany. However, we see it also as an opportunity for researchers and experts from the Global North to gain new perspectives. And expose themselves to knowledge types, framings and ways of thinking that are derived from the Global South, leading to a mutual exchanges of knowledge and views.

PlanAdapt also hopes to build its networks with like-minded hosting organizations, such as Ecologic Institute, Adelphi Research, Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Centre for Materials and Coastal Research and the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), as part of an enhanced mutual learning process between colleagues from the Global South and Germany.