NEPSUS: Project team members visit MSC

The NEPSUS project team has gathered at MSC during March for an extended period of project collaboration.

The NEPSUS project
Based in Tanzania, the NEPSUS project (New Partner-

ships for Sustainability) seeks to explain the formation of complex partnerships in natural resource management and establish whether and how they lead to better and more equitable sustainability outcomes in comparison to simpler forms of partnerships. Three natural resource sectors in Tanzania - wildlife, coastal resources and forestry - are studied by a multidisciplinary team with the purpose of making structured comparisons of the forms of complexity involved.

Research collaboration
During their research stay at MSC, team members (many of whom come from the University of Dar es Salaam, while others come from the University of Sheffield, Roskilde University and MSC) have analysed the data from the past two years of fieldwork and written up the results for each of the three sectors covered by the project (wildlife, forestry and coastal resources).

Dr Christine Noe, Senior Lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam and co-coordinator of the project, explains that one of the truly unique aspects of the project is the capacity building inherent in close collaboration. The team has been working together throughout the process - from design and planning through joint fieldwork to testing and debating methodologies, key concepts, and findings - and in the process has uncovered and enhanced new strengths in the team as a whole as well as in the individual members. It will be one of the great inspirational takeaways from this project, Dr Noe concludes.

The NEPSUS team at work

Further information
The NEPSUS project is funded by the Danish Foreign Ministry, the Consultative Research Committee for Development Research (FFU), and is jointly coordinated by Professor Stefano Ponte, who is director of the Centre for Business and Development Studies at MSC, and Dr Christine Noe. Later this year, the team will meet again, this time in Tanzania, to continue the collaborative process. The project ends in 2020.

Read more about the project and the team at www.nepsus.info . For further information, please contact Stefano Ponte, sp.msc@cbs.dk, or Christine Noe, cnpallangyo@gmail.com.