Three experts from the UP Faculty of Science and the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences took off for a research trip to Zambia with the focus on development cooperation. The results of their research will be used in further planning of the Czech Republic's international development cooperation, which aims to improve living conditions in developing countries.
The field research in Zambia involves Lenka Dušková from the Department of Development and Environmental Studies at the UP Faculty of Science, together with Lenka Suchá and Zuzana Harmáčková from the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Their work in Zambia will be supported by Štěpán Bubák and the local field staff of the application partner, People in Need. The target location of the qualitative field research is the area around the city of Mongu in the Western Province. This region is also located in the Kingdom of Barotseland. “Although it is a formally unrecognised kingdom, traditional structures still play a big role in the region,” said Dušková.
The existing research findings have been based on an analysis of interviews and participatory workshops with implementers of Czech international development cooperation projects. “Thanks to our findings, we have gained a deeper insight into their current practice, including the types of knowledge necessary for preparation and implementation of development cooperation projects. We explored how they perceive development as such. In order to make our view on Czech international development cooperation comprehensive, similarly focused interviews will also be conducted with local staff of Czech organisations in Zambia, with an emphasis on knowledge transfer between the Czech Republic and Zambia and the perception of development cooperation,” Dušková indicated.
Together with the Czech development cooperation implementers, they identified issues in 2021 that represent a challenge for further planning of projects in the target countries. These issues will therefore be the focus of field data collection in February. “We are primarily interested in the relationship between society and nature, and will focus on, for example, access to land or dealing with complicated land ownership cases. We also want to obtain information about people’s employment in agriculture in terms of social and environmental relations. We will also explore systems of governance and power relations across traditional and formal structures,” said Dušková.
The February field research in Zambia includes in-depth interviews and focus groups involving representatives of traditional structures at different levels of governance, national and local government officials, local experts, farmers, market influencers, small-scale financial institutions, interest groups, community representatives and beneficiaries of aid.
“We strive for a greater interconnection of science and applied research with Czech development cooperation practice. That is why we are trying to connect the needs of those involved in the implementation of projects in target countries by means of sharing findings from field research on socio-ecological dynamics in this case study in Zambia,” said Dušková.
The organisation of the trip to Zambia was complicated by the coronavirus epidemic. “On site, participants will have to follow all prescribed sanitary rules and cope with transportation to the research sites, which may be complicated by the ongoing rainy season,” added Dušková.
Zambia is a landlocked country in the southern part of Africa. With an area of 752,614 square kilometres, it is almost ten times larger than the Czech Republic. Zambia has 16 million inhabitants, who speak about seventy languages. Mining and mineral processing form the backbone of Zambian industry. Agriculture in Zambia is extensive and characterised by a low degree of modernisation.