The SAGE-Centre

The SAGE-Centre is based at An-Najah University in Nablus, Palestine, with hubs in Jordan and Germany, and aims to empower societies in the Jordan basin to find science-based solutions to an adaptive and sustainable management of natural resources in a changing world. The centre will serve as a regional resource for capacity building of a young generation in an international environment and will thereby become a focal point for regional efforts to propose climate and land use change adaptation options.  

The overarching goals of SAGE are to contribute to sharing of and exposure to knowledge and capacity building in relevant disciplines, to conduct multilateral and interdisciplinary research on areas of concern, and make available cutting-edge research relevant for decision-makers. It aims to become a regional resource for national and international bodies concerned with global change and to promote regional transboundary cooperation in global change and is financed within the DAAD-programme Global Centres for Climate and Environment. SAGE is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Anan Jayyousi from An Najah University and Prof. Dr. Katja Tielbörger, University of Tübingen.

Team D: Governance and Ethics

Principal Investigators

Dr. Christiane Fröhlich
Prof. Dr. Thomas Potthast

Our team addresses the implementation gap, i.e. the problem that adaptive policy-intervention methods and management methods are known, but not implemented. Key to addressing the implementation gap are attitudes, values, and institutions, which greatly affect how natural resources are governed. We study socio-economic and cultural differences as well as cross-country obstacles to good governance of climate change, with a particular focus on conflict and cooperation. Yet, what does this entail? We operate on the level of – maybe conflicting – ethical baselines for good governance of limited natural resources in a transdisciplinary approach. Recent research suggests, for instance, that a better understanding of national security discourses is key to effectively scoping the available space, time, and willingness to negotiate water issues under conflict, which in turn is crucial for future water diplomacy. Via a discourse and ethics analysis of qualitative data, we identify regional policy makers’ and stakeholders’ attitudes towards the basi(c)s of good governance facing climate change as well as normative reasons for their attitudes. 

PhD Fellows

Sara Ashour

Sara Ashour is a trade policy analyst and negotiator at the Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry with more than nine years of experience in trade agreements, rules of origin, and trade facilitation. She holds an M.A in Development and Governance from University Duisburg-Essen in Germany and a B.A. in Political Science from Cairo University. Within SAGE, her research focuses on trade policies and their effect on food security and climate mitigation efforts within the Jordan river Basin.

Nada Majdalani

Nada Majdalani is a practitioner, researcher and consultant in the field of environmental assessment and management. She received her M.Sc. degree in Environmental Assessment and Management from Oxford Brookes University, UK in 2009. Mrs. Majdalani is the director of Ecopeace Middle East in Palestine. Within SAGE, she works on the use, abuse and misuse of intangibles in contested water projects in the Jordan Basin.

News

SAGE-Kick-off in Berlin

From September 5-8, 2022, the SAGE-centre consortium with partners from the region and from Germany and the SAGE PhD fellows met in Berlin to kick-off inter- and transdisciplinary activities. Also, the SAGE team participated in the DAAD-Conference for the Global Centres and the Humboldt Research Hubs, „International Scientific Cooperation for the World of Tomorrow: Global …

Contact

info (at) governanceandethics.com