Raymond Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso

Portrait Raymond Ouedraogo © Andreas Melcher
  • Current employment: Researcher, Institute for Environment and Agricultural Research, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
  • Scholarship: North-South-Dialogue Scholarship – financed by the Austrian Development Cooperation
  • Duration: 11/2007–12/2010
  • Motto: Keep trying: you never lose.

Curriculum Vitae

Raymond Ouedraogo, PhD, is currently working as a researcher at the Institute for Environment and Agricultural Research in Burkina Faso. In this position, he is dealing with fish, fisheries and aquaculture. From 1995 to 2013 he was a junior and then a senior officer of fisheries and aquaculture, working in the General Directorate for Fish Resources, Ministry of Environment and Fish Resources. From 1991 to 1995, he was appointed as junior manager of the Kompienga reservoir fishery, Burkina Faso. In total he has currently 27 years of working experience. He took the opportunity of his studies in Austria to build a network with his supervisors and some relevant institutions and people in Burkina Faso (universities, NGOs, fisheries department, research institutions) to build good and multidisciplinary network which was awarded grants by APPEAR to prepare the Susfish project that is about fish and water resources in Burkina Faso, implement it a first phase from November 2011 to Novevmber 2014 and a second one from December 2016 to December 2019. In Austria, the main scientific partners are the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (Boku), the University of Vienna and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Raymond Ouedraogo also kept in contact with some researchers in Belgium and the United Kingdom where he studied in 1998–1999 and 2002–2003 respectively.

Reflection

Since my stay in Belgium in 1999 I have wanted to establish good relationships with some experts in developed and developing countries to be able to implement some activities related to my professional background. Finally my education in Austria was the most fruitful in terms of impacts but the previous stays in Europe also contributed. After my doctoral studies in Austria I was appointed as researcher in the Ministry of in charge of higher education and scientific research, meaning that I became a full researcher. The Susfish project contributed to the career of its main researchers. From my side, in July 2017, my work was somehow recognised by the CAMES, the council for higher education in Africa and Madagascar, an institution that assesses the career of researchers in Africa.