SUSFISH-plus team meeting in Austria

1. October 2018
Group of people posing in front of a blackboard with a project poster on it
How can information sharing between scientists, government officials and stakeholders in the water and fisheries management in Burkina Faso be further improved? This question was in the focus of the SUSFISH consortium meeting in Vienna in September 2018.

In addition to the adjustment of project activities, the timetable and deliverables, the team also discussed how SUSFISH-plus could contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by integrating the social simulation game and policy exercise into the project's innovation platform. The consortium tested the Nakambe Strategic Simulation to find out more about the major watershed in Burkina Faso.

In a social simulation players focus on a serious goal - in this case the management of a watershed - and through direct interaction among participants challenges, synergies and trade-offs are discussed and solutions developed. This kind of social simulations can be used for trainings, organizational settings or social awareness-raising projects. Through playing various roles participants take different perspectives on a specific topic. The Nakambe Strategic Simulation was conceived by Pitor Magnuszweski, Centre for System Solutions, who also guided through the game.

The meeting was the first international meeting at BOKUs new TÜWI - proudly hosted by the Centre for Development Research (CDR). Even before the official opening of the building, the new TÜWI has thus become a beautiful hub of academic exchange. The project team went on excursion to Carinthia, in the south of Austria, to learn from aquaculture expert Markus Payr and discussed with him if in Burkina Faso's natural and man-made aquatic systems, aquaculture could fill the gap and boost the nation’s fishery production.