The kick-off was organized by Ass. Prof. Dr. Jeninah Karungi and her team from Makerere University, Dr. Allan Komakech and Dr. Alice Turinawe. Apart from the project partners from Makerere, the team from TU Kenya (Dr. Luke Olang, Dr. Jacinta Kimuyu, and Dr. Lewis Sitoki) as well as one representative from BOKU (Dr. Mathew Herrnegger) and TU Wien (Dr. Jakob Lederer) participated in the meeting.
After the introduction by the host Jeninah Karungi on the first day of the meeting, Jakob Lederer from TU Wien gave an overview on the APPEAR programme and the CapNex project. Afterwards, Mathew Herrnegger (BOKU), Jacinta Kimuyu (TU Kenya), Alice Turinawe and Allan Komakech (both from Makerere) presented the four case studies to be carried out in the project. After lunch, the links between the different case studies, as well as the data requirements by each case study as well as the support with data collection was discussed.
On the second day, the topics of capacity building and stakeholder involvement in the research were discussed. Afterwards, the general and financial project management requirements under APPEAR were presented. After having another great lunch at the canteen, open questions regarding the project management were discussed. At 16:30 o'clock, the host Jeninah Karungi officially closed the meeting.
While the colleagues from TU Kenya and Makerere were preparing the start of their case studies in the project, Mathew Herrnegger and Jakob Lederer used the remaining days to visit the case study area in the border region between Kenya and Uganda. During this visit, a number of stakeholders were contacted and visited, particularly the Water Management Zone of Lake Kyoga in Mbale (Uganda), the Sio-Malaba-Malakisi River Basin Project in Kakamega (Kenya), technical experts from the German GIZ working in the field of water resource management in Uganda in Mbale and Lira (Uganda), the local NGOs Youth Environment Service (YES) in Busia (Uganda) and Development Education Services for Community Empowerment (DESECE) in Londo (Bungoma North, Kenya), both of which are working with the Austrian Development Organization Horizont 3000. At the latter, contact was also established to an Austrian technical expert from Horizont 3000 working with DESECE in Kenya.
