Enjoying the II International Conference on African Urban Planning in Lisbon

By Adriano Biza

It was a great experience to attend the II International Conference on African Urban Planning. The event was organised by the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning (IGOT) of the University of Lisbon in collaboration with International Planning History Society (IPHS) and was held in Lisbon, on 7th and 8th September 2017. Continue reading

Attending IWA’s international conference on water reclamation in Long Beach

By Noor
It was 16:30 on the 21st of July 2017 that I arrived at Long Beach airport after a long trip from Maputo, on a sunny day with nice and warm weather. Continue reading

Witnessing the politics of integrated urban resilience agenda in Mozambique

by Adriano

In the past 20th April I had the opportunity to witness some of the efforts to integrate the theme of urban resilience into the planning cycle in Mozambique. I participated in an event named “The Dialogue on Urban Resilience in Mozambique”. This event aimed to stimulate new ideas and solutions to incorporate disaster resilience into the country’s development strategies, plans and programs. More information can be found on UN Habitat’s Facebook page. Continue reading

Participation at World Water Day 2017 in Maputo

by Adriano, Celma and Noor

This year’s World Water Day theme was “Wastewater: Promoting its Reuse, for Sustainable Development”. In Mozambique the day was celebrated with several activities organized by the National Directorate of Water Supply and Sanitation (DNAAS, in Portuguese). Among them, it involved speech at educational institutions such as schools and Universities and at the main ceremony day on 22 March 2017. Continue reading

QMRA summer course

by Celma

During the period of 22 July to 01 August this year I attended a summer course at Michigan State University (MSU) about Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment. This course was an important experience that provided tools and knowledge to implement AMRA into my PhD research. It also served as a network platform within QMRA researchers community group. Throughout that week I attended lectures and learned how to develop case studies. The course was very intense but I was still able to get around East Lansing visiting the MSU Campus and the University Museum.

Celma
Celma at MSU.

Attending the Workshop on “Water Equity and Resilience in Southern Africa”

by Adriano Biza

Through an invitation of Professor Leila Harris, on behalf of the International Waters Research and Training Network I had the opportunity of participating in a “Workshop on Water Equity and Resilience in Southern Africa”, which was held between 24th and 26th August 2016, at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Continue reading

Attending the “International Climate Change Adaptation Conference”

by Adriano, Celma, Joaquim and Noor

Through NWO we got the possibility of attending the 4th International Climate Change Adaptation Conference (10-13 May 2016) in Rotterdam. The conference has the watchword “Adaptation Futures 2016: Practices and Solutions”. The venue with different features included plenaries, round tables, science session, practice session and science-practice session. The themes covered included cities and infrastructures; food, forestry and rural livelihoods; fresh water availability and access; public health; ecosystems based ecosystem based adaptation; disaster risk reduction and the artic. Cross-cutting issues covered topics such as, risk assessment, adaption planning and evolution; institutions and governance and; finance, investment and business. The opening speech was done by Melanie Schultz van Haegen, Minister of Infrastructure and Environment of the Netherlands; Robert-Jan Smits, Director for Research and Innovation, representative of the European Commission; and Ibrahim Thiaw, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. Continue reading

Three day workshop in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)

by André and Noor

On the last week of January 2016 André, Noor and Celma attended an NWO workshop in Ho Hi Minh City, Vietnam. The meeting brought together, for the first time, researchers and PhD candidates involved in the Urbanizing Deltas of the World-I (UDW-I) call, and created an open forum for discussion on the content and on research uptake and stakeholder engagement. Unfortunately not everybody could join, due to visa issues, and that was also the case of our colleague Joaquim. Continue reading

Studying and living in the Netherlands – first impressions

by Joaquim Nhampoca

This is a kind of narrative of a quite long process of my coming to the Netherlands for my project. The main purpose is to share with everyone about my PhD programme and obviously my stay in Delft. To make it clear I will start by the application for the PhD position, arrival and accommodation, studying at UNESCO-IHE, and finally living in Delft. Continue reading

First group meeting

by André

We organized our first project meeting since the appointment of the four PhD candidates. The two-day meeting took place in Delft on the last week of September and everybody was presented, the PhD candidates and their supervisors and promotors; we were very happy to host Maria Rusca traveling from the UK and Nelson Matsinhe and Sandra Manuel from Mozambique. We would also like to thank Michel Riemersma for taking to time to be present during the first day and presenting the ideas that RoyalHaskoningDHV has for future developments in Maputo. Continue reading