Huambo - Angola participates with seven projects in the Southern Africa Centre for Sciences and Services for Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Soil Management (SASSCAL 2.0), whose implementation started last March, ANGOP has learned.
These are projects won by researchers from the Agostinho Neto University (UAN) in Luanda Province, José Eduardo dos Santos University (UJES) in Huambo Province and Kimpa Vita University in Uíge Province, in addition to the Higher Polytechnic Institute of Tundavala University in Huíla Province and the Angolan non-governmental organization ACADIR.
The information was provided Tuesday to ANGOP by the coordinator of SASSCAL in Angola, Vasco Chiteculo, who stressed that the national projects are linked to the infrastructure problems, the network of scientific interaction for networking and other support projects, approved for a period of three years (2023, 2024, 2025).
The official highlighted the projects of the José Eduardo dos Santos University, in Huambo, related to food security and use of forests for community areas, management and sustainability of Angolan soils, and support for the training of beekeeping for honey production.
He added that the projects made by the Angolan non-governmental organization ACADIR, operating in Cuando Cubango Province, addresses the development of improved livelihoods and human resource management, due to climate change.
Vasco Chiteculo revealed that in 2022, the projects were based on the acquisition of equipment, equipping of laboratories, human capacity development, and exchange, while the implementation phase started last March, and is expected to end in 2025.
The official added that in total SASSCAL 2.0 has 13 projects, established in five countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), namely Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia, with financial support from the Federal Republic of Germany, budgeted at 8.6 million euros.
He informed that Angola, besides participating with seven projects, with a budget of over 678.130 euros, is also coordinating two of the projects, namely the support of sustainable management of soil fertility and the creation of a virtual engineering field.
According to the SASSCAL coordinator in Angola, the organization's actions are divided in different categories, from the great problems of the SADC, individual researches, scientific network of curricula in the universities of the Region, improvement of the scientific infrastructure and the community´s development.
It also aims at solving regional problems, in both countries, relying, for this purpose, on the cooperation of the members´ scientists, who are interlinked in presenting viable solutions, for example the lack of water, nutrients in the soils, and in conducting laboratory tests.
The SASSCAL experts address the issues according to their capabilities, for the resolution of the problems identified in one of the community members, with various positive impacts on the well-being of the population.
He highlighted the impacts of SASSCAL on the welfare of the society, such as training of cadres, growth of researchers in the framework of science both in Angola and in the SADC region, stemming of ravines in the various communities.
Meanwhile, SASSCAL 2.0, which is attended by experts from Energy and Water, Agriculture and Forestry and Environment, linked to the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, is focused on fostering scientific activities of SADC universities and civil society, with funding from Germany.
