Can the blue economy alleviate poverty and rural exodus in East Africa?
The University of Montpellier once again shines on the international stage. David Mouillot, UM professor at the MARBEC (Marine biodiversity exploitation and conservation) laboratory and senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France, has just been awarded an ERC Advanced fellowship. This funding will enable him to conduct original, transdisciplinary research assessing the potential of coastal marine resources to alleviate poverty and emigration in rural areas of East Africa affected by land aridification.
A blue economy project to alleviate poverty and rural exodus in East Africa affected by land reclamation
The project is based on one main hypothesis: over the last three decades, which have been particularly marked in East Africa by land desertification and natural disasters, coastal and rural villages have better mitigated poverty and emigration by developing a sustainable blue economy providing alternative resources and livelihoods.
The blue economy is an economic concept referring to economic activities linked to oceans, seas and their coasts. David Mouillot's study will combine satellite imagery, artificial intelligence algorithms and statistical spatial matching methods, as well as multidisciplinary field surveys. The project will focus on three types of blue economy (marine protected areas, ecotourism and aquaculture) and three countries (Madagascar, Tanzania and Mozambique) where agricultural resources are threatened by climate change and where sustainable development issues are among the most critical worldwide.
The causal link between the development of a blue economy and the long-term dynamics of poverty and rural exodus remains unexplored territory in international research. The aim is to better understand the extent to which coastal communities in East Africa have been able to adapt to the consequences of climate change on their land by diversifying their activities towards the sea. The results could generate new local knowledge and solutions to guide policy and investment in Africa (EU interventions, UN organizations, donors, non-governmental organizations).
" I see this ERC project as a springboard for more applied and operational projects in the field, to test transformative solutions to demographic and environmental pressures," says David Mouillot.
An original and innovative participation in this ERC
The European Research Council (ERC) funds exploratory research projects at the frontiers of knowledge, in all fields of science and technology. It is a highly competitive call for proposals, with scientific excellence the only criterion.
Despite the very low success rate, Professor David Mouillot's participation is mainly motivated by the prospect of long-term research (5 years). Even if the application procedure is arduous and the oral presentation very stressful, the freedom of research and the financial envelope offered by the ERC will enable us to delve deeper into the subject, develop hypotheses and sometimes test them.