Through regional collaborations, the Institute continues to play a central role in advancing wildlife conservation, research, and capacity building across Africa. By adopting and promoting cutting-edge tools like the Integrated Management Effectiveness Tool (IMET), the Institute remains committed to generating reliable scientific data that informs policy, guides management decisions, and ensures the long-term protection of the continent’s unique biodiversity.
On 26th June 2025, the Institute, in collaboration with CIFOR-ICRAF and with support from the European Union, participated in the official launch of the IMET training held at Lake Naivasha Resort, Naivasha.
The regional training brought together participants from Anglophone African countries who are directly engaged in the management of protected areas in their respective nations.
The IMET is designed to facilitate the collection of reliable data on the status of Africa’s marine and terrestrial protected areas, including forests, national parks, wildlife conservancies, marine reserves, and community-conserved areas. By enabling standardised and comparable assessments, the tool supports data-driven decision-making for conservation.
Representing the Institute’s Director was Head of Research Permitting, Dr. Vincent Obanda, who underscored the importance of IMET in strengthening conservation management.
“As a research institute, we believe that the tool will ensure that data collection methods and analysis are standardised, reliable, and comparable. We appreciate CIFOR-ICRAF for spearheading this capacity-building initiative and reaffirm our commitment to partnering on scaling up tools and technologies for data-driven conservation,” he stated.
This initiative is part of the Africa Regional Centres of Excellence (ArcX) programme, which promotes the sustainable management of Africa’s forests, biodiversity, and ecosystems through innovative, data-driven solutions.