Welcome to my blog!

Jambo Bwana! Habari gani? Karibu sana !*

My name is Alice, and I’m an Arts and Sciences third year student from UCL, with a passion for people-oriented wildlife conservation, sustainable development and Africa. 

Part of my studies have led me to pick a module on Water and Development in Africa (highly convenient, you may say) and so I was thinking I may as well use my interest in conservation-driven sustainable development and put it in relation to water management/ use. 

The idea behind this came from what I learnt following my internship this summer at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, in Isiolo, a province of Northern Kenya, where their ethos is making "conservation about people". I was lucky to observe, amongst other things, one of their fresh-water springs, an ongoing project derived for and by wildlife conservation as part of their wider development objectives in Northern Kenya.

My further travels to the Kivu region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo complimented what I learnt in Kenya. I was able to understand firsthand the dynamics between conservation and grassroots development using water as one of three development pillars - via Virunga’s incredible action plan building hydroelectric pumps and protecting the forest -and the ongoing politics/ power relations behind resource management in a country currently undergoing several stability and governance issues, to say the least. 

This introduced me to key debates, in regards to who has access to water, the (often hidden) power relationships and disputes behind claims to resources, from local -almost informal- to national and international politics, as well as seeking a correct balance between topdown and grassroots approaches. 

I'd like for this blog to therefore address water problematics in relation to governance, fairness and power, potentially drawing from case studies at relatively localised levels. This is just an idea for now....stay tuned for more information!

My next post will develop this introduction, outlining a more precise direction of study, more firmly grounded in academic literature.

I hope you enjoy my work and ideas, feel free to comment with opinions or critiques. 

Asante sana** , 

Alice 

Waterhole at Lewa during the wet season. The Horn of Africa and Northern Kenyan territories have been undergoing a drought for the last three years, putting strain on the claims to resources by livelihoods and, in this context, conservancies for wildlife population subsidence. 

*  Hello visitor, how are you? You are very welcome here!

** Thank you