CENSU – Climate Change Energy Sustainability
The Climate Change, Energy, Sustainability (CENSU) project addresses the needs for increased education and research capacity in Tanzania and Mozambique related to the multiple sustainability implications following ongoing and anticipated oil and gas projects.
The project will carry out research on current and anticipated oil and gas exploration mainly in Lindi in southern Tanzania and Inhassoro in central Mozambique, as well as in other coastal areas of the two countries. The research, in close collaboration with PhD and master students of the project, will form the basis for the education of a local and national work force with high-level competence in climate change and sustainable development related to petroleum and other extractive industries.
News
This autumn, we welcome four master students and five PhD students from our partner universities, to OsloMet.
About the project
CENSU is a partnership between OsloMet, University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), State University of Zanzibar (Tanzania), Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique) and Universidade Lurio (Mozambique), financed by Norad’s NORHED II program. CENSU’s chief objective is to foster competence and capacity – within both education and resarch – on the sustainability implications of gas extraction and governance in the context of vulnerable communities and climate change. Tanzania and Mozambique hold huge gas deposits in the Rovuma Basin in the Indian Ocean, and emerging gas extraction activities pose both opportunities and challenges.
Consequently, CENSU speaks directly the larger sustainable development agenda and the SDGs (goals no. 1, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16). CENSU’s themes and geographies are, furthermore, particularly relevant to key concerns and priorities in Norway’s development policy.
CENSU will contribute substantially to research competence and education at the partnering university. It will fund 8 phd fellowships and 20 master grantees – of which 8 will do OsloMet’s Master in International Education and Development (MIED) – all from the Southern partner universities. Select Norwegian students at MIED will have the opportunity to carry out their master theses research with the help of Southern partners, within the CENSU research portfolio.
Key research question adressed through CENSU include:
- How are ecological and social dynamics interwoven in relation to gas extraction in fragile societies and vulnerable environments?
- To what extent, and how, are local community livelihoods affected by gas extraction activities?
- How do governing institutions and transnational petroleum corporations and their contractors respond to expectations and concerns of citizens, and how do they promote sustainable development?
Team of Researchers
Einar Braathen
Research Professor
Hanne Svarstad
Professor
Marianne Millstein
Researcher
Simon Pahle
Associate Professor
Yuri Kasahara
Researcher