Makerere University, in partnership with local, regional, and international institutions, is advancing climate-smart agriculture and sustainable livelihoods through the TORCH Project – Towards a Clean Energy and Zero-Emission Society in East Africa: Strengthening Academic and Community Collaboration in Outreach, Training, and Research for Green Growth and a Healthy Environment.

TORCH is a collaborative initiative designed to help communities respond to climate change through practical innovations, research, and inclusive partnerships. Implemented across Uganda, South Sudan, and Austria, the TORCH Project is focused on strengthening academic and community collaborations in outreach, training, and research aimed at building a cleaner energy future and a zero-emission society. In Uganda, one of the flagship interventions is the establishment of a Living Lab in Kabale District, Kamuganguzi Sub County Nyabumba Village, where farmers, students, researchers, and development partners are working together to test and demonstrate environmentally friendly technologies that can improve household welfare while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A Community-Centred Response to Climate Change

The Living Lab model places communities at the centre of innovation. Rather than introducing externally designed solutions, the project works directly with local households to identify challenges affecting their livelihoods and co-create practical responses suited to their environment.

A project monitoring and progress review meeting was held on 27 April 2026 in Kabale, bringing together key stakeholders to assess achievements, review ongoing activities, and plan the next phase of implementation. Participants included representatives from Makerere University, BOKU University (Austria), Kabale University, Youth Go-Green, as well as students, researchers, farmers, and community leaders.

Addressing the participants, Dr Patrick Musinguzi, Principal Investigator from Makerere University, explained that climate change is no longer a distant concern but a present-day challenge affecting every sector of society, including agriculture, health, energy, and livelihoods.

He said the TORCH Project seeks to support communities with solutions that progressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving resilience and productivity. “The project is about greenhouse gas emissions. We need to see how to progressively reduce or cut down the emissions,” Dr Musinguzi said.

He further observed that universities have a responsibility to generate knowledge that solves real community problems and supports sustainable national development.

Practical Technologies Already Transforming Rural Households

The Kabale Living Lab has identified several priority technologies based on the specific needs of farming households in the area. According to Prof. Phelix Mbabazi Businge, the Project Coordinator from Kabale University, four technologies were prioritized after consultations with the host family and surrounding community.

These include:

1. Biogas Systems

The biogas technology is to convert animal and organic waste into clean cooking fuel, reducing dependence on firewood and charcoal while lowering indoor air pollution. It will also provide nutrient-rich slurry that can be used as organic fertilizer.

2. Woodlots

A woodlot of 500 trees (Calliandra, Grevilia and Gliricidi) was planted. The establishment of the woodlots is to promote sustainable fuelwood production, restores degraded land, and contribute to carbon sequestration. This will help reduce pressure on natural forests.

3. Food Warming Baskets

These traditional but energy-efficient baskets help retain heat in cooked food, reducing the need for repeated reheating and minimizing fuel consumption.

4. Rainwater Harvesting Tanks

Water harvesting systems improve access to clean water for domestic use, livestock, and small-scale farming, especially during dry periods.

Assoc. Prof. Busingye reported that implementation of these technologies is progressing steadily and that the host farmer has already expressed satisfaction with the impact of the project.

He called upon local residents to continue supporting students and researchers who will be using the site as a learning and demonstration centre even after the project officially closes.

Empowering Youth as Drivers of Green Transformation

Recognizing that youth are central to future sustainability, the TORCH Project has partnered with Youth Go-Green, an organization working to mobilize young people around environmental conservation, entrepreneurship, and community development.

Speaking during the meeting, Mr. Muhumuza Edwin, the organization’s coordinator, said Youth Go-Green currently works with more than two million young people across Uganda through national and regional structures.

He stressed that agriculture remains one of the most strategic sectors for youth employment and economic transformation.

“Farming is one of the key priority areas that we need to emphasize and improve,” he said.

He encouraged young people and community members to actively participate in the project and support one another in adopting sustainable farming practices.

Host Farmer Shares Life-Changing Experience

At the centre of the Kabale Living Lab is Mr. Charles Byarugaba, the host farmer whose home now serves as a practical learning site for the community.

Mr. Byarugaba explained that before engaging with the TORCH Project, farming in the area was often done without planning, resulting in low productivity, inefficiency, and financial losses.

“Traditionally, I used to engage in unplanned business and farming. We would benefit little or find ourselves at the losing end before we started working with the TORCH Project,” he said, noting that the project had introduced him to better planning, enterprise management, and more sustainable farming methods. Beyond his own household, he sees the Living Lab as an opportunity for the wider community to learn improved practices that can reduce poverty, improve nutrition, and create more reliable incomes.

Mr Byarugaba expressed appreciation to the project partners for selecting his farm as a demonstration site and pledged continued cooperation.

Research that Begins With Communities

Mr. Andreas Bauer, a representative from the Institute of Development Research at BOKU University, highlighted the TORCH Project’s unique participatory research approach.

He explained that unlike conventional research models where experts first define scientific questions and later seek communities to test them, TORCH starts by listening to people.

“Before we come up with a research question, we talk to the community and see what their issues are in their livelihoods. We ask what should be done to make a difference in the local communities,” he said.

This method ensures that research outputs are relevant, inclusive, and responsive to the real needs of farmers and households.

The model also provides students with valuable field-based learning opportunities, exposing them to applied research, stakeholder engagement, and innovation for development.

Strengthening Academic Partnerships Across Borders

The TORCH Project demonstrates the power of cross-border academic collaboration in solving pressing development challenges. Key partner institutions include: Makerere University, BOKU University (Austria), Kabale University, Kyambogo University, Busitema University and University of Juba

Together, these institutions are combining expertise in agriculture, climate science, energy systems, community engagement, and higher education to build solutions that can be replicated across East Africa.

Way Forward

As implementation continues, stakeholders reaffirmed their commitment to expanding successful interventions, increasing community participation, and strengthening research outputs that support sustainable development.

For Makerere University, the TORCH Project reflects the institution’s broader commitment to research excellence, innovation, and community transformation. By connecting academic knowledge with local realities, the University is helping communities build resilience against climate change while creating pathways to cleaner energy, food security, and inclusive growth.

With climate pressures increasing across the region, the Kabale Living Lab stands as a strong example of how universities and communities can work together to shape a more sustainable future.

This report provides an update on ongoing training, research and community engagement activities being done under the DANIDA-funded APCCO Coffee Agroforestry Project that is being implemented at Makerere University under collaboration with NARO-University of Copenhagen (UCPH), National Coffee Research Institute Uganda (NaCORI), Mukono Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MuZARDI), CURAD Incubator, GrowGrounds, NewForesight, and Regen Farmer. This report highlights part of students’ PhD research studies being conducted in Mukono and Nakaseke districts focused on understanding how Robusta Coffee Agroforestry systems can contribute to improving smallholder livelihoods, closing the living income gap, and enhancing climate resilience. The APCCO project seeks to promote sustainable coffee agroforestry systems that deliver environmental benefits such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and climate resilience, while also improving household welfare. Integrating trees into Robusta coffee farms is a proven strategy to enhance smallholder productivity and build resilience to climate variability. As a multi-benefit nature-based solution, tree integration can improve ecosystem services, support climate adaptation, and strengthen livelihoods when effectively managed. However, its adoption remains uneven, constrained by gaps in farmers’ knowledge, socio-cultural and economic barriers, and misconceptions, particularly under increasing climate pressures. This project aims to investigate farmers’ knowledge of tree species, the factors influencing their integration and the performance of Robusta coffee in central Uganda.

Makerere University’s Department of Geography, Geo-informatics and Climatic Sciences in partnership with Quadrature Climate Foundation and Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre are seeking two fellows for Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF) Fellowship Programme. This is a two-year post-doctoral programme fully funded by QCF, which is an independent charitable foundation working for a greener and fairer future. Applications for the two-year post-doctoral fellowship are invited from individuals with demonstrated interest and expertise in locally led adaptation to climate change research. This initiative is a unique and excellent opportunity to expand the network of interested individuals with researchers and decision-makers, as well as deliver action-oriented research to inform policy and practice. Depending on their interest, each applicant should choose one of the two thematic areas offered under the fellowship program:

1. Knowledge co-creation for locally led adaptation to climate change
2. Decentralised decision making for effective climate change adaptation and resilience

The Fellow working on the Thematic Area 1: knowledge co-creation for locally adaptation will explore collaborative learning processes (including informal learning) for climate change adaptation among smallholder farmers with focus on Uganda, with linkages to related work in Bangladesh, Mozambique and Napal. The overall intention is to generate understanding of how decision making processes, across scales, can be linked to local and context specific knowledge systems and process for epistemic just adaptation. The key research questions are:

• What does the process of co-creating knowledge for locally led climate change adaptation look like in a rural smallholder farming setting of a Least Developed Country (LDC)?
• What are the possibilities, promises and pitfalls of knowledge co-creation for locally led adaptation planning?

The research will intentionally contribute to methodological and practice advances in co-creation of knowledge for locally led climate change adaptation.

The research on Thematic Area 2: decentralized decision making for effective adaptation and resilience will undertake scientific interrogation of a climate finance mechanism that has been designed for locally led adaptation and resilience in Uganda. The Fellow will largely focus on testing selected assumptions behind the design of the mechanism. The key questions are:

• How does effective locally led climate change adaptation and resilience building investment decision making look like in practice?
• What works and how does it work? What does not work and why?

Key considerations in the research will include local leadership, inclusion, context specificity, cross-scale, and capability strengthening. The targeted contributions of the fellowship include improved knowledge management for climate resilience planning and decision-making, strengthened evidence-based research-policy-practice dialogues, framework(s) for integrating local and experiential knowledges in resilience building investment decision making processes, among others.

The Fellows will be based, full-time, at Makerere University, Kampala as a core member of the team working on locally led adaptation and resilience. Their work will be conducted under the auspices of the Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC) through which Makerere University is engaged in research and knowledge management collaborations. The Fellowships will focus on Uganda, but with deliberate linkages across LDCs, which might necessitate travels for in-person working meetings.

Roles and responsibilities of the Postdoctoral Research Fellow

The Fellow will be highly motivated to work with a transdisciplinary research team, grow their research expertise, engage with climate change researchers, decision-makers, practitioners and generate different categories of publications. Makerere University will mentor to the Fellow to provide professional development support. Where needed, the Fellow will participate in teaching and community outreach activities including knowledge sharing in ways that foster collaborative research for adaptation policy and practice.

Requirements:

• A PhD, awarded within the previous five years, in a related discipline (e.g., geography, climate and society, sustainability, adaptation governance, epistemic justice, climate finance).
• Knowledge and experience of locally led adaptation
• Experience in synthesizing and managing datasets and literature.
• Experience in, and knowledgeable of, participatory and collaborative action-oriented research methodologies and tools.
• Demonstrated ability to produce research information products for different audiences.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
• Demonstrated interest and experience in transdisciplinary collaborations across-scales including with local communities, decision-makers and practitioners
• Experience in giving international oral presentations and interest in public communication for wide-ranging categories of audiences
• Data and information visualisation skills will be an added advantage

Application requirements:

Applicants should submit a single PDF with: (i) an application letter not longer than 2 pages that includes indication of theme of interest, a description of demonstrated research interests, research expertise, and an explanation of how they can work as part of the transdisciplinary research team in line with the fellowship objectives described above; (ii) a CV including a publication list; (iii) copies of academic transcripts and/or certificates; (iv) an example of written work; (v) email addresses of two references who have been directly involved in their PhD research.

Applicants must submit the PDF application document to colocal.caes@mak.ac.ug. Please type “LUCCC PDR Application: COLOCAL-Makerere” as the subject line of the email.

Closing date

Midnight (GMT+3) on 15^th May, 2026 or until the position is filled.

Selection process

Eligible and complete applications will be considered followed by communication with short-listed applicants. Makerere University, in consultation with Quadrature Climate Foundation and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, will conduct interviews of the short-listed applicants.

If you have not heard from Makerere University within two months of the deadline, please assume your application has been unsuccessful.

Contact details for enquiries about this post-doc fellowship: colocal.caes@mak.ac.ug

Makerere University reserves the right to

• Disqualify ineligible, incomplete and/or inappropriate applications;
• Change the conditions of the award or to make no awards at all

-The QCF Fellowship Programme is a two-year, post-doctoral programme fully funded by Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF).

-Quadrature Climate Foundation is an independent charitable foundation working for a greener and fairer future. For more information on QCF, please visit qc.foundation.