"What I like best about this organization is that it incorporates legal, economic, political, social, and ecological factors together in one project," Charlotte van der Schaaf, a student who has worked for GLOWA since August, told Conference News Daily.

GLOWA is part of the "Research for the Environment" strategy launched by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, by which GLOWA is funded. GLOWA is currently researching topics like social security, governance, population, human rights, biodiversity and sustainable uses for land and water in Ethiopia, Pakistan, Brazil, Ghana, Senegal, Russia, China, Jordan, Uganda and the Amazon. But some of their most prominent projects are those in Ghana and Burkina Faso, where they are attempting to compensate for the lack of proper institutions by dealing with problems like those arising from shared watersheds.

"Burkina Faso is building dams, meaning that less water is going to flow into Ghana," van der Schaaf said.

The result? "We're going to look at factors influencing rainfall and water management and put it into a model," she explained, pointing to colourful depictions of the GLOWA's projects around her exhibit here. "Eventually there will be a water policy change. Governments can use this kind of model, and we show them that we want to change this or that so they can manage it based on how it will affect the whole system, investigating atmosphere, land and water use."

"We're trying to set up a decision support system for these countries that don't have one," she continued. "Burkina Faso has a ministry that doesn't really work, and some management at the local level. We have to advise them on how to manage water sustainably and among themselves."

As to how successful GLOWA has been in these efforts, van der Schaaf admitted it was hard to say. "We're still a really young organization," she said. "We're only in the first of three phases, which are renewed very year. You have to complete one project cycle and go on to the next one when it's been successful."