Over 75 percent of Afghanistan’s population lives in rural areas, and agriculture is the country’s main economic activity. After three decades of war and political instability, agricultural education is once again playing an important role, and many young Afghans are preparing themselves to become teachers. Special efforts are being made to train women as teachers … Read more

Getting people who have polarised views to sit together, listen to and learn from one another is a major challenge. Take the palm oil industry, for example. A product of the humid tropics, palm oil is currently the most important and versatile vegetable oil on the world market and demand keeps increasing. However, the growth … Read more

In our June 2005 issue, an article explained how GIAHS (Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems) was being developed to safeguard the world’s most valuable traditional agricultural systems, reflecting rich biodiversity, knowledge systems and cultures. David Boerma, now working on a large GIAHS initiative funded by the German government in Tanzania and Kenya, explains how the … Read more

When Project WET first began in north central United States in 1984, it aimed to find tools to explain about groundwater processes to schools and communities. Now, 25 years later, the centre produces a wide variety of water resource materials and training programmes for educators in over 50 countries. Sandra DeYonge, Vice President of publications, … Read more

What exactly is microfinance and how does it work? How can you make a budget and why is it important to save? How can you set up a farmers’ cooperative, village bank or self-help group? The Rural Finance Learning Centre helps you to find answers to these questions. A lot of valuable training materials about … Read more

Around the world, pastoralists are asking for better education programmes. “We need to move beyond thinking about schools as buildings, and find creative ways to bring education to nomadic peoples!” So states Caroline Dyer, lecturer at Leeds University, just back from Kenya, where a new education strategy to reach mobile pastoralists has been launched. Exactly … Read more

Around the world, pastoralists are asking for better education programmes. “We need to move beyond thinking about schools as buildings, and find creative ways to bring education to nomadic peoples!” So states Caroline Dyer, lecturer at Leeds University, just back from Kenya, where a new education strategy to reach mobile pastoralists has been launched. Exactly … Read more