Who we are

Studying African Farmer-Led Irrigation is a collaborative research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID). It brings together social science researchers from the UK and irrigation scientists from the Netherlands to work with African researchers in Mozambique and Tanzania.

Meet the SAFI team

Professor Philip Woodhouse

Professor Philip Woodhouse

Professor, School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester

After training as an agricultural scientist at Oxford (BA) and Reading (PhD), Philip Woodhouse worked in Mozambique for eight years for the National Agronomy Research Institute and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. Since returning to the UK he has been based first at the Open University and subsequently at Manchester. He has undertaken research in a number of countries in Francophone West Africa, southern Africa, and East Africa. He has also collaborated on research in Brazil. His publications include:

  • African Enclosures: the social dynamics of wetlands in drylands (James Currey, 2000)
  • Water Resources and Development (Routledge, 2011).
Professor Daniel Brockington

Professor Daniel Brockington

Director of the Sheffield Institute for International Development, University of Sheffield

After training as an anthropologist at UCL, Dan Brockington then worked at the Geography Departments of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, before moving to Manchester and Sheffield. Most of his research has been in Tanzania, where he has worked on livelihood change, natural resource governance, microfinance and institutional performance. He has also worked in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India. Broader interests include work on global overviews of the social impacts of protected areas, media and conservation and continental-wide examinations of the work of conservation NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa. Most recently Dan has worked on celebrity and development based largely on work in the UK. Published works include:

 

  • Fortress Conservation(2002)
  • Nature Unbound (With Rosaleen Duffy and Jim Igoe, 2008)
  • Celebrity and the Environment (2009)
  • Celebrity Advocacy and International Development (2014)
Gert Jan Veldwisch

Gert Jan Veldwisch

Assistant Professor, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

After training in Irrigation Management and Institutions at the University of Bonn, Gert Jan Veldwisch then worked for the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Chimoio, Mozambique, before moving to Wageningen University. Gert Jan currently works mostly in Southern and Eastern Africa, but he has also worked in Latin America and Central Asia, and is an engaged academic in the field of irrigation and development. He is particularly interested in participatory irrigation development, irrigation and agrarian change and issues around water justice.
Jean-Philippe Venot

Jean-Philippe Venot

Senior Researcher, Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD), Montpellier, France

After training in Agronomy and Environmental Management (Institut National Agronomique de Paris-Grignon), and Human Geography (University of Paris X-Nanterre), Jean-Philippe Venot then worked for the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) first in Ghana, then in Burkina Faso. He has worked as a Researcher at the University of Wageningen, where he is still an Associate, and is now a Senior Researcher at the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement in Montpellier, France. His research focuses on analyzing the discourses and policy models that underpin public policy and development interventions in the irrigation and water sectors in developing countries. His most recent work draws from anthropology and development and STS to unravel the discursive framing and dynamics of drip irrigation promotion in sub-Saharan Africa and Irrigation Management Transfer policies in south-East Asia.
Angela Manjichi

Angela Manjichi

General Director for Academics and Research and Assistant Lecturer, Department of Agriculture, Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica, Mozambique

Angela Manjichi trained in Agronomic Engineering (Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique), and in Environmental Management (University of Notre Dame, Australia), before becoming Assistant Lecturer in Rural Extension and Development at ISPM. She is the Director of the Business Incubator Centre and Co-ordinator of the Institution’s Unit for Gender and HIV/AIDS. Angela’s research is focused on sustainable development, natural resource management, and climate change and environmental education.
Hans Komakech

Hans Komakech

Lecturer of integrated watershed management, Department of Water, Environmental Science and Engineering (WESE), Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology, Tanzania

Komakech has conducted researches on water governance institutions in national and transboundary basins; and point of use water treatment and safe storage. His research interest is in water resources management, water allocation issues in catchment areas and agent-based modelling. Komakech has published in a number of peer reviewed journals. As a civil engineer, he has experience in quantitative surveying, design and supervision of civil engineering works. He worked as Project Manager/Engineer with international non-governmental organisations. Major activities included planning, implementation and monitoring program activities, administrative and technical support covering issues such as asset tracking, procurement, scheduling and budgeting. Finally, He worked as a consultant in a number of civil engineering projects.
Helena Mkoba

Helena Mkoba

Agricultural Engineer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Tanzania

Helena Mkoba is an Agricultural Engineer at the Agriculture Research Institute, Mbeya, Tanzania. She has a Masters Degree on Land Use Planning and Management from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Morogoro, Tanzania. She conducted research on soil and water conservation in Kiroka village, Morogoro. This focused on the performance of hillside ditches in controlling soil erosion in banana – maize farming systems, and which was implemented by FAO through SUA. She has worked with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) as a field researcher on Matrilineal Land Tenure and Irrigation in the Uluguru Mountains, Morogoro, Tanzania. Helena’s research interest is on Land and Water Management.
Devotha Nyambo

Devotha Nyambo

Assistant Lecturer and Research Assistant at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology

Devotha holds a Masters degree in Information and Communication Science and Engineering. She also holds a Bachelor degree in Computer Science. Currently, Devotha is an Assistant Lecturer and Research Assistant at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology. Her major roles includes the preparation and monitoring of training workshops to project field staff, information systems design, development of paperless data collection tools, field work technical support, preparation and delivery of tutorial. Devotha has developed a great interest in ICT for agriculture projects in which her goal is to change the livelihood of smallholder farmers by accelerating changes in small scale farming systems by using Information Technology. At the institution, she also takes part in the data analytics research group in which a number of projects involving data collection and analysis for small scale farming systems is being done.
Tomé Nguiraze

Tomé Nguiraze

Assistant Lecturer and Block Coordinator of Rural Extension and Development, Division of Agriculture at Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica, Mozambique

Tomé Nguiraze holds a BA in TESOL, from the University of London, United Kingdom and an MA degree in ELT and Multimedia from Warwick University, United Kingdom. Although trained in Language Teaching, he has a great passion for Rural Extension and Development, and has been working in this area for more than 8 years. Prior to working with the SAFI project, he worked with the MIPP project (Messica Irrigation Pilot Project) led by Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He is an Extension Agent Trainer in central Mozambique for the PROIRRI Project of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. He has been granted permission to start on the PhD Programme at Wageningen University, Department of Social Science, Knowledge Technology and Innovation Group.
Ana Lidia Gungulo

Ana Lidia Gungulo

Researcher (Agricultural Economist) in the Socio-Economic Centre, at Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica, Mozambique

Ana Lidia Gungulo’s focus of research is Socio-economics and climate change. She completed a Masters degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and an Honours degree in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique.

Ana Lidia Gungulo is a fellow of  AWARD – African Women in Agricultural Research and Development

Katherine Hall

Katherine Hall

Project Manager, University of Manchester

Katherine has previously worked for the BBC (2001 – 2008) and the Financial Times (2008 – 2012) on website and infrastructure projects.