Can the blue economy help alleviate poverty and rural exodus in East Africa?
The University of Montpellier continues to shine on the international stage. David Mouillot, a UM professor UM MARBEC (Marine Biodiversity, Exploitation, and Conservation) laboratory and a senior member of the Institut universitaire de France, has just been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. This funding will enable him to conduct original, transdisciplinary research assessing the potential of coastal marine resources to alleviate poverty and emigration in rural regions of East Africa affected by land desertification.
A project to alleviate poverty and rural exodus in East Africa, where land is drying up, through the blue economy
The project is based on a central hypothesis: over the past three decades—a period marked in East Africa by land desertification and natural disasters—coastal and rural villages have been more successful in mitigating poverty and emigration by developing a sustainable blue economy that provides alternative resources and livelihoods.
The blue economy is an economic concept referring to economic activities related to the oceans, seas, and their coastlines. David Mouillot’s study will combine satellite imagery, artificial intelligence algorithms, and statistical methods of spatial matching, 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 challenges are among the most critical globally.
The causal link between the development of a blue economy and the long-term dynamics of poverty and rural exodus remains an unexplored area in international research. The objective is to better understand the extent to which coastal communities in East Africa have been able to adapt to the impacts of climate change on their land by diversifying their activities toward the sea. The findings could generate new insights and local solutions to guide policy and investment in Africa (including initiatives by the EU, United Nations agencies, donors, and nongovernmental organizations).
“I see this ERC project as a springboard toward more applied and operational projects in the field to test transformative solutions to demographic and environmental pressures,” says David Mouillot.
An original and innovative contribution to this ERC
The European Research Council (ERC) funds exploratory research projects at the frontiers of knowledge in all fields of science and technology. This is an extremely competitive call for proposals, with scientific excellence as its sole criterion.
Professor David Mouillot’s decision to apply is primarily motivated—despite the very low success rate—by the prospect of conducting long-term research (5 years). Even though the application process is arduous and the oral defense is very stressful, the research freedom and funding offered by the ERC will make it possible to explore the topic in depth, develop hypotheses, and, in some cases, test them.