Study trip rounds off first COMIFAC Summer School

After a ten-day study trip, the first Summer School in support of the Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC) came to an end in the beginning of this month. Participants from all in all nine central African member states of the RIFFEAC network (Réseau des institutions de Formation Forestière et Environnementale de l’Afrique Centrale) had taken part in the education modules of the Summer School in Frankfurt during the previous two months.

During the festive closing event, all participants recapulated about the stimulating and intensive sessions, which were organized in eight modules on topics such as sustainable forest management, protected area management, climate and climate adaptation, Access and Benefit Sharing, cartography and GIS. The project was carried out by AMBERO Consulting in cooperation with the Centre for Interdisciplinary African Studies (ZIAF) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit mbH (GIZ).

In the beginning of October, the participants as well as the directors of the respective RIFFEAC-institutions were invited to take part in a ten-day study trip through Germany and the Netherlands. Part of the programme were visits to different educational institutions in the two countries. Besides the official opening ceremony at the GIZ headquarter in Eschborn, some of the interesting stops were among others the German Research Association (DFG), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the University of Göttingen, Kassel and Hamburg, HessenForst’s training center as well as the Dutch University of Wageningen.

Particularly in the different institutes of the universities, the participants had the opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas with the respective responsible professors. Of particular interest to the participants were aspects such as the dual education system, which was later mentioned during a feedback round at the Goethe University in Frankfurt.

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Runge, director of the ZIAF and coordinator of the project, praised everyone’s enthusiasm and drew a positive conclusion of the first Summer School in Frankfurt. He, furthermore, appealed to all participants to keep their enthusiasm alive and make use of it. According to him, it now becomes very important to make use of new contacts, do some further networking and particularly push the transfer projects one step further, immediately after the return to the respective home countries of the participants.

During the Summer School, participants had developed so-called transfer projects, which they are now supposed to put to practice, consecutive to the Summer School with the support of the GIZ program ‘Regional support of the COMIFAC’. Such a ‘transfer project’ could for instance be the development of a forestry and environment related further training program or even a study program such as a dual education program within their home institutions.

Read more about this year’s Summer School and its participants: PDF-File