Community Talks is a monthly webinar where experts from Flanders and abroad can meet and share their knowledge & academic research.
With this platform, we aim to build sustainable research connections and increase local (societal) impact through knowledge sharing on a global scale.
Wednesday 25 September, 11h00 - 12h00 (CET)
"Erasmus & VLIR-UOS – a winning team for impactful projects in East-Africa"
Food system activities are increasing putting pressure on planetary boundaries. Farmers are angry and consumers concerned. While we are far from the goal to reach zero hunger, over 2 billion people suffer from overweight and obesity. Healthier diets derived from more sustainable food systems are needed.
This community talk deals with some key challenges and opportunities of our food system, and builds up on the outcomes of the global food security conference that took place in Leuven in April 2024.
To get warmed up for the event, check out the Feed: a food systems podcast. It's a deep dive into exploring the evidence, worldviews, and values that people bring to global food system debates. Listen to the episode of June 27th here (or wherever you listen to Feed: a food systems podcast) or check this video.
Speaker
Tessa Avermaete is postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven. Her key areas of interest and expertise are food and nutrition security, sustainable food systems, agriculture and sustainable diets. She strongly beliefs in the constructive dialogue with all stakeholders, an evidence-based approach for food and farming policies, and charismatic leadership as pillars for building a more sustainable food system.
As EU project manager at the Sustainable Food Economies Research Group (KU Leuven), she aims at contributing to these pillars.
Don't miss out and register here!
School-aged children harbour high malaria parasitaemia in most endemic areas of sub-Saharan Africa and constitute the main reservoir of malaria and thus fuel the transmission of the disease.
Therefore, a clinical study in North eastern Tanzania assessed if preventive treatment of malaria in schoolchildren (IPTsc) is a feasible, acceptable and effective tool to reduce malaria and malaria related anaemia. The results were such that, for evidence of the operational feasibility and effectiveness, the Ministry of Health followed immediately and sponsored and executed an implementation study involving over 73,000 school children from 127 primary schools.
This, in its turn, led to a policy brief developed to guide the introduction and practice of IPTsc in moderate to high endemic areas, and IPTsc will be rolled out in one third of Tanzania. Meanwhile, this strategy is recommended by the WHO malaria guideline 2023.
Speakers
In recent years, the Western Indian Ocean region has seen drastic decline in key fisheries due to the combined effects of illegal fishing, habitat degradation, overfishing, and climate change.
Since sharks grow slowly and produce few youngs, the shark fishery is the mostly affected. Hence, many species of sharks are currently classed as threatened. Despite the existence of regulations against exploitation of the endangered sharks, due to lack of adequate taxonomic expertise and poor coordination between the policy makers and law enforcers, illegal trade of the protected sharks still occur. Also, the catch data are recorded on papers which may take long to reach the Fisheries Department.
This project will develop a Smartphone application for identification of the landed sharks and an electronic logbook to enable fisheries officers to record and share catch data with managers and stakeholders in real time. To ensure capacity building, the project will provide scholarship to 1 MSc, internship to 5 BSc students, and training to 20 in-service personnel. All research findings will be hosted in open systems.
Speakers
Are you interested in getting in touch with one of our speakers? Or looking for more info on a particular project? Or even interested in presenting your own project?
Olive Tengera, University of Rwanda
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Leo Van Audenhove (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
The success of the Community Talks is of course closely linked to the active engagement of our community. By sharing our promo video or invitations to the webinars in your network, you help our Community Talks to grow.