A four-day training organised by ARCOS was concluded on Friday 16th of December 2011, with 26 trainees awarded certificates in Biodiversity Informatics, Data Management and GIS. The event took place in Kigali and brought together professionals from different institutions partners to ARCOS from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. The training was led by ARCOS Regional Information Systems Manager, Zac Maritim, with contributions from GBIF Secretariat and GBIF Nodes in Kenya, Uganda and Cameroon.
Trainees holding their certificates, Photo CN/ARCOS
Participants to the training committed to put to the good use the skills they acquired for a more effective conservation action in the Albertine Rift through networking and use of better data collection and sharing methods, through the Albertine Rift Data Management and GIS Group set up under the GBIF Community Group.
“This was a great opportunity to meet as professionals from different backgrounds and countries” said Aline Njebarikanuye of the National Institute for Environment and Nature Conservation (INECN/Burundi); “the skills we gained here are not only practical but also life skills because GIS is now a growing and cross-cutting tool and we hope we are going to make a difference in our institutions” added the monitoring and evaluation coordinator at INECN.
