The University of Ghana has been awarded an initial seed grant of US$ 794,000 by the Open Society Foundations to coordinate the implementation of a project “Co-producing knowledge on food systems for development in Africa” under the Africa Climate Change Adaptation Initiative (ACCAI) Partnership.
The project aims to contribute to expertise, knowledge and development of implementable policies in Africa to guarantee food security and will provide research grants to thirty (30) PhD, MPhil and post-doctoral candidates to deliver aspects of the project’s research agenda.
The UG component will focus on research questions in the area of climate change and food security, thus advancing two of UG’s research priorities namely Climate Change Adaptation and Food Security research.
Specifically, the UG component will focus on the following thematic areas:
1) Shifting Eating habits, Nutrition and Food Technology in relation to Climate Change and Food Security;
2) Rural-Rural, Urban-Urban Migration, Urbanization and Food system Change in the face of Climate Change; and
3) Indigenous Crops, Indigenous Knowledge and Wild Food
A multidisciplinary research team of interested UG faculty will be constituted to deliver the UG component. A call for applications for the Post-Doc/PhD/MPhil research grants will follow shortly.
The grant is in line with one of the University’s nine strategic priorities, Research, which seeks to create a vibrant intellectual climate which will stimulate relevant cutting edge research through Interdisciplinary research and collaboration with other institutions.
The other members of the ACCAI Partnership are Mekelle University (Ethiopia), University of Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania), University of Nigeria and Universities of Stellenbosch & Witwatersrand (South Africa).
Special appreciation to Prof. Yaa Ntiamoah-Baidu, Director, Centre for African Wetlands and Dr. J. Naalamle Amissah of the Crop Science Department, College of Basic and Applied Sciences for the development of the winning proposal.
