Current projects and programmes

GROWNET project

GROWNET stands for 'Global Ground water Network for Best Practices in Groundwater Management in Developing Countries'. This project is a collaboration between AGID and the International Geoscience Program (IGCP). Further details can be obtained by following this link, and visiting the website www.igcp-grownet.org

Geoethics project

AGID is involved in a project which is investigating the development of geoethics as a new discipline. For many people geoethics is a completely unknown or poorly known discipline. Since 1991, Dr Vaclav Nemec, Vice President of AGID for Europe, has been inspired in creating an instrument to help in decision making where ethical dilemmas occur in connection with the use of mineral resources. Geoethics therefore cover ethical problems and dilemmas in the fields of geology, mining activities and energy resources. The latest news, written by Dr Vaclav Nemec and Lidmila Nemcova describes the background, rationale and challenges behind this emerging subject area and is available for download.

Book and journal donation programme

For more than ten years AGID operated a distribution service for donated geoscientific literature to institutions throughout the developing world. For further information on this programme visit http://www.turnstone.ca/agid.htm.

This programme was run by AGID CANADA, a registered Canadian charity, informally affiliated with AGID. AGID CANADA amassed a large collection of scientific books and journals, mostly covering topics in geology and related subjects, for shipment to institutions in developing countries around the world.

Grants for student research

The William Greenwood Memorial Fund helps the promotion of geoscientific education by awarding scholarships to postgraduate students in the developing countries to carry out fieldwork.

The latest William Greenwood Scholarships (2010) were awarded to two Nigerian and two Bangladeshi postgraduste students. If you are a postgraduate student in a developing world country and require financial support to carry out your fieldwork please contact one of the current AGID Officers.

Publications

AGID has produced a number of important publications in the past, including a quarterly journal titled Geoscience and Development and continues to publish a quarterly Geoscience Newsletter co-sponsored by UNESCO. Follow this link for further information on AGID past and current publications.

AGID’s 'The Earth and Me' (TEAM) Project.

Started as a contribution by AGID to The International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE), the purpose of this project is to raise the awareness of schoolchildren in developing countries of the ways in which geoscience is relevant to their everyday lives. The focus is on children attending schools in relatively impoverished areas in developing countries.

A first phase is concentrating on pilot projects in Nigeria and Bangladesh. Simple handouts on key topics such as clean drinking water, natural geohazards, mineral deposits and etc, will, depending on their relevance to the geographic area targeted, be prepared in the appropriate vernacular language and distributed freely to schools in the area. In addition these will be supplemented by workshops for teachers. Schoolchildren will be encouraged to take the leaflets home so that their families may also learn from them, thus transferring the information to the wider community.

For an abstract concerning a study of geoscience awareness in Nigeria download here.

International Conference on Geoscience for Global Development

The conference “Geoscience for Global Development” jointly organised by AGID, The International Geoscience Education Organisation (IGEO), The International Union of Geological Sciences, The Geological Survey of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Geological Society  was successfully held from October 25-30 in Dhaka Bangladesh. 130 papers were submitted prior to the conference and delegates from 43 countries were present from both developed and developing countries.

Download a report on International Conference on Geoscience for Global Development 2009.