Salibo Somé, founder of Africa’s Sustainable Development Council, will deliver the 2010 Darl Snyder Lecture on March 4.
The lecture begins at 10 a.m. in Masters Hall of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. It is open free to the public.
Somé has helped raise more than $4.3 million to support people across Africa. Focusing on literacy and micro-enterprise development in agriculture, livestock and forestry, he has helped 7,500 men, women and children living in 106 villages since founding the program in 1998.
His vision for a sustainable nation began when he was a child growing up in Burkina Faso. After earning a master’s degree in entomology and a doctorate in crop and soil sciences from UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, he returned to rural Africa. Somé speaks six languages and has authored or co-authored several articles on sustainability and entomology.
Since 1992, the UGA African Studies Institute has invited accomplished scholars in African studies to lecture in honor of Darl Snyder.
A pioneer at UGA in the development of African studies, Snyder established numerous linkages with African universities. His UGA career began in 1969 at the Rural Development Center in Tifton. During his 27-year tenure at UGA, he established the worldwide Collaborative Research Support Program on peanuts and implemented a USAID-funded agricultural human resource development program. This led to the creation of an agricultural research station at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
A fellowship fund, created in Snyder’s honor, helps fund student trips to Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa.
