Unlocking progress: MDG acceleration on the road to 2015

According to the report, progress on the MDGs should be viewed from four sequential steps. The first is to identify the relevant MDG target (generally one that is off track, or unlikely to be met, based on current projections) and enumerate the key interventions that are considered necessary to reach it. The second step is to analyse the causes of the lack of complete success of each intervention, thus identifying the bottlenecks. Once identified, bottlenecks should be prioritized in terms of their potential impact on the MDG target, were they to be removed. In general, bottlenecks identified can either be cross-cutting in nature, affecting several MDGs at the same time, or specific, affecting primarily the MDG in question. Countries often find it useful to classify each specific bottleneck into one of the four categories—policy and planning, budget and financing, service delivery and service utilization.For more on the report, visit the UNDP site.

Communication for Empowerment: Global Report 2010

This report is the result of partnership initiative in piloting the Communication for Empowerment approach in five Least Developed Countries. The report presents key learning from the information and communication needs assessments conducted in the five countries, funded by a grant from the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF). The pilot process offered an opportunity to test the framework and understand how information flows within communities and how the voices of those people who are often not heard or seen are unleashed. The assessments widenen the conception of Communication for Empowerment. Visit the UNDP website for more information.

Southern Africa Water Wire journalists training

Dr Eben Chonguica, Executive Secretary, OKACOM, explains Okavango governance issues to journalists

Eighteen journalists from the SADC region are in Maun this week to learn about water resource management issues. The training coincides with SADC's Multi-Stakeholder Water Dialogue meeting on October 12th and 13th, and has included a briefing and field trip focused on the 2010 Okavango floods organized by OKACOM's Secretariat. The briefing included contributions from Birdlife Botswana, the Okavango Research Institute, Botswana departments of Agriculture and Water Affairs and Ministry of Health, the Basin Wide Forum, and Kalahari Conservation Society. The event is part of a GTZ funded SADC programme implemented by the IPS Inter Press Service Africa, the Southern Africa Water Wire. A special issue of Terraviva magazine will record the experiences of the trainee journalists.

HOORC seminar series: Communicating environmental information in the public sphere: Visualized and verbal communication approaches

In his presentation at the HOORC Seminar Series, Dr. O. T. Thakadu stated that the purpose of his study was to compare the effectiveness of two public instructional communication methods, i.e (visualized and the traditional verbal methods) on people’s knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and intention in the sharing of environmental knowledge. He highlighted the importance of translating science research into a language easily understood by the lay person, especially decision-makers, and how this understanding ultimately influences social behaviour, management and policy. The focus of his study was primarily based on sharing environmental information that would help protect the environment, targeting CBNRM board members in community areas in the Okavango Delta, Botswana as environmental agencies often use these structures to disseminate information to the broader communities. The study found that neither of the two methods was better than the other in terms of impacting predictors of knowledge sharing behaviours. Furthermore, it also found that the participants had more favourable attitudes or preference for the visualized method over the traditional verbal approaches. Factors such as positional hierarchy, gender, and age were identified as playing a role in people’s knowledge sharing beliefs and intentions. The importance of undertaking knowledge sharing capacity needs assessments, skills training in areas such as self-efficacy and public speaking, and promoting cultural conceptual change and civic responsibility among target knowledge dissemination agents was highlighted. Ensuring that these areas are addressed among information diffusion agents may help promote effective environmental knowledge dissemination among communities, and hopefully influence responsible environmental behaviours.

Competition “10 ideas for tomorrow's Africa”

Within the framework of the 50th anniversary of African independence, the Social and Human Sciences Sector of UNESCO (SHS) is launching a “Call for Ideas” for prospective proposals in favour of Africa’s development within the next decade.Among the proposals, which should be submitted before Friday 30 April 2010 at 10 ideas will be selected by an international jury and presented by their author(s) during 10 small-scale conferences to be held at UNESCO Headquarters, in mid-June 2010.Each proposal is expected to develop one idea which would amplify the positive effects and reduce, or contain, the negative impacts of the major trends observed in Africa on one of the 10 following topics: Topic 1: Economy and Development (Environment, Food Security, New Information and Communication Technologies…) Topic 2: Governance, Policy, Institutions, Leadership Topic 3: Regional Integration, Population, Migration, Urbanization Topic 4: Cultural Identities (Languages, Religions…) Topic 5: Youth Topic 6: Human Rights, Gender and Justice Topic 7: Diaspora Topic 8: Peace, Security and Conflict Topic 9: Health, Education and Social Development and Topic 10: International Relations. For more visit the UNESCO website.

Change at hand: Web 2.0 for development

Web 2.0 tools and approaches are changing the ways we create, share, collaborate and publish digital information through the Internet. Participatory Web 2.0 for development – or Web2forDev for short – is a means of employing web services to intentionally improve information-sharing and online collaboration for development. Web 2.0 presents new opportunities for change as well as challenges that we need to understand and grasp. This special issue shares learning and reflections from practice and considers the ways forward for using Web 2.0 for development. Available: http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/14563IIED.pdf

New UNFPA Blog

Conversations for a Better World is a shared blog, in which people can express, exchange ideas and opinions on various development issues. Each month, the blog will feature an editorial focus on one major topic. Burning issues of today demand discussions among people and it is in this spirit that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is launching a series called Conversations for a Better World. The idea is to promote and activate informed discussion and debate.

Ephemeral River Basins project news

HOORC's Library has received the latest issue of the Ephemeral Rivers Basins Newsletter, with stories about the use of reeds in the Fish River, award of Botswana's National Vision 2016 prize to a resident of the Boteti River basin, and development of an integrated water resources plan for Namibia. The newsletter also has lists of upcoming events for the ERB Project's final year. You can find the newsletter in HOORC's Library.

New HOORC Library web site

HOORC's Library has launched its new web site, featuring the legacy collection of annotated maps from the Pete Smith Collection. The site was developed through a partnership with the University of Botswana Archives team and HOORC's GIS Laboratory, using ArcGIS Server and Drupal software with technical support from Digital Treasure Botswana and the UK's Comsine.

New in HOORC's Library: Okavango Films

Newly catalogued in HOORC's Library are three films about the Okavango region from Afriscreen: A Wild Dog's Story, about Tico McNutt's research on African wild dogs, The Great Flood, about the Okavango's annual flood pulse, and Elephants without Borders, about Mike Chase's work in the Chobe area. You can watch the films in HOORC's Library.Newly catalogued in HOORC's Library are three films about the Okavango region from Afriscreen: A Wild Dog's Story, about Tico McNutt's research on African wild dogs, The Great Flood, about the Okavango's annual flood pulse, and Elephants without Borders, about Mike Chase's work in the Chobe area. You can watch the films in HOORC's Library.

HOORC seminars: palm conservation and stakeholder communication

Hyphaene petersiana

Two presentations were made by HOORC staff in the HOORC seminar series this past week: Impacts of palm wine tapping on Hyphaene petersiana population in Shorobe by Bongani Sethebe and Relative effects of visualized and verbal presentation methods in communicating environmental information among stakeholders: Okavango Delta, Botswana by Olekae Thakadu. Mr Sethebe, Herbarium Assistant, is proposing to look at the offtake from palm trees due to wine tapping and to explore sustainable methods for harvesting the trees, which are also used for basket making in the Ngamiland area.

Mr Thakadu, a Research Scholar in the area of environmental communication and education, is exploring communication and information diffusion processes among community stakeholders in the Okavango Delta. Guided by communication theoretical frameworks and processes, his research is assessing effective communication approaches and factors necessary to promote environmental knowledge sharing behaviors among Okavango Delta stakeholders.

Botswana government procedures for researchers

The Botswana Government's web site publishes information for environmental researchers and filmmakers wishing to work in the country. You can view and download research guidelines, research application form, credit card authorization letter, general park fees and filming permit forms.

BIOKAVANGO community interns visit

Community interns at HOORC's Library

Today two members of the Shorobe community, Ms Keshetile Dikole and Ms Bapalang Karonda, wrap up a ten day visit to HOORC that has made them familiar with how locally collected data and information are processed and used at the research centre. The two spent time in HOORC's library, environmental laboratories, natural collections and GIS laboratory, observing and gaining hands-on practice working with documents, samples and maps. The internships are sponsored by the BIOKAVANGO Project to help build capacity in biodiversity conservation.

Recent research from HOORC

Water resources management model for Okavango River Basin from Kiker, Munoz-Carpena, Wolski, Cathey, Gaughan and Kim article


Published results of research by HOORC staff and associates recently added to the HOORC Library catalogue cover a wide range of topics relevant to management of the Okavango.


A study reported in The effects of soil cover on soil respiration and microbial population in the mopane (colophospermum mopane) woodland of North Western Botswana by Mabiletswane P. Siele, Tabo Mubyana-John and HOORC ecologist Casper Bonyongo in Dynamic Soil, Dynamic Plant found that fungi contribute significantly to soil structure and respiration under mopane tree canopy.

HOORC Deputy Director Moses Chimbari and C.J. Shiff's investigation of the potential use of the fruit of Jatropha curcas to kill snails that transmit schistosomiasis, A laboratory assessment of the potential molluscicidal potency of Jatropha curcas aqueous extracts, was published in the African journal of aquatic science.

Incorporating uncertainty into adaptive, transboundary water challenges : a conceptual design for the Okavango River basin by Gregory A. Kiker, HOORC researcher Piotr Wolski and associates, published in the International journal of risk assessment and management, explores models for management of transboundary water issues in the Okavango River Basin.

HOORC researchers Philippa Huntsman-Mapila and Susan Ringrose joined associates Tiercelin, Benoit, Diskin, Cotten and Hemond in investigating the origins of the formation of the Okavango's alluvial fan, reported in the African journal of earth sciences, Sediment geochemistry and tectonic setting: application of discrimination diagrams to early stages of intracontinental rift evolution, with examples from the Okavango and Southern Tanganyika rift basins.

HOORC researchers Susan Ringrose, Philippa Huntsman-Mapila and Cornelis Vanderpost also contributed to a study of changes in sediments that sheds light on palaeo-environmental change in the Okavango, reported in Diagenesis in Okavango fan and adjacent dune deposits with implications for the reccord of palaeo-environmental change in Makgadikgadi - Okavango - Zambezi basin, northern Botswana in the journal Geomorphology.

HOORC associate Michael Heinl collaborated with Mike Murray-Hudson, Jan Sliva and Budzanani Tacheba to find that fire plays a secondary role to flooding in affecting vegetation structure and tree density in the Okavango floodplain, reported as The relevance of fire frequency for the floodplain vegetation of the Okavango Delta, Botswana in the African journal of ecology.

HOORC researchers Ketlhatlogile and Belda Mosepele worked with associates Peter Moyle, Glenn Merron and David Purkey to write Fish, floods, and ecosystem engineers : aquatic conservation in the Okavango Delta, Botswana in Bioscience, an argument for fisheries as a key issue when analysing environmental flows in the Delta.

Communicating integrated water resources management : from global discourse to local practice -- chronicling an experience from the Boteti River sub-Basin, Botswana by Larry Swatuk and HOORC researcher Moseki Motsholapheko, published in Physics and chemistry of the earth, reviews the challenges of influencing opinion and beliefs in the context of integrated water resources management.

The same issue of Physics and chemistry of the earth, edited by HOORC researcher Dominic Mazvimavi, featured an article by Mazvimavi and HOORC environmental chemist Wellington Masamba, Impact on water quality of land uses along Thamalakane - Boteti river : an outlet of the Okavango Delta, calling for increased monitoring of fluctuations in water quality of the rivers flowing from the Delta.

You can find all these resources in HOORC's Library.

Volunteer journalist visit

Maria Henson in the Delta

HOORC's Library had a visit today from Sacramento Bee editor Maria Henson, who has been working as a volunteer with the University of Botswana, Bana Ba Letsatsi, Children in the Wilderness, and Desert and Delta Safaris (through volunteer travel company The Leap). You can read about Maria's experiences in her web log, Maria's African Odyssey.

Government notices of interest to the Okavango Community

From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVI, no. 56, 29 August 2008

Tender: Republic of Botswana: revision of the national standards for road construction: Botswana Road Design Manual (BRDM) and Standard Specification for Road and Bridge Works (SSRBW)
4316
Tender: Republic of Botswana: supply of avicide Fenthion 64 per cent ultra low volume
4369
Tender: Republic of Botswana: a services contract to design, develop and implement departmental website for Department of Water Affairs
4372

Tender announcements and documents may also be found on the Government of Botswana web site. The entire issue of the Government Gazette may be read in HOORC’s Library.

Underwater crocodile photos

The weblog of freelance photographer Roger Horrocks recently featured underwater photographs of crocodiles taken in the Okavango Delta, and well as a story about filming lions in Moremi Game Reserve with the Earthtouch crew.

Wildlife film and image sites

African skimmer from ARKiv site

Intute has alerted us to several film and image related web sites that focus on wildlife. Wild Film History is a multi-media guide to the history and heritage of wildlife film-making. Wildscreen is a UK-based educational charity promoting the public appreciation of biodiversity and the conservation of nature through wildlife imagery. ARKiv aims to compile audio-visual records, where such media exists, for the 16,000-plus species currently threatened with extinction, according to the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. In HOORC’s Library, you can find African safari photography by Chris Weston and Wildlife travel photography : a guide to taking better pictures by Andy Rouse.

“Whose Delta” Dialogue

On Thursday 31 January, the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Biokavango project sponsored a public discussion on the topic of, “Whose delta is it?” at Maun Lodge.

Ownership of the Okavango Delta was debated enthusiastically by a strong panel and a good variety of interested stakeholders. Some points of agreement emerged – the delta belongs to local people in terms of generating benefits for their well-being; to the nation in an economic sense (contribution to GDP); and to the world as part of our natural heritage and its contribution to global biodiversity conservation. Issues of jurisdictional scale and the delta’s natural “flux” are complex, and generated fodder for lively and good-natured debate of the question at hand for up to three hours.

Maun contact lists online

Jacana Enterprises, which circulates a daily weather update for the Maun area by e-mail, has posted its useful contact lists online. See the Jacana Maun Safari List , the Jacana E-Mail, Web and Skype List and the Jacana Maun Phone Book as well as the Jacana GPS List from the company's web site.