Rwanda is the land of a thousand hills, but also hundreds of wetlands. The wetlands are vital to the country’s sustainable development. Despite their importance for the water, energy and agriculture sectors, these ecosystems are being adversely affected by rapid urbanization, industrial development and the intensification of irrigated agriculture. To inform national sustainable development, accurate and updated information on wetlands is needed.

ARCOS and their partners aim to conduct an ecological integrity assessment, focusing on species diversity and occurrence data for a representative set of wetlands in Rwanda. The assessment will help decision-makers to identify threats affecting biodiversity and plan future efforts to conserve biodiversity in these wetlands. ARCOS has been awarded a grant to facilitate planning for this wetland assessment. The planning phase will set up partnerships, ensuring that the biodiversity data produced through the wetland assessment is relevant to local needs. Furthermore, ARCOS will use the planning phase to determine the technical mechanisms for distributing data and serving data users.

1. Formalization of project partnerships and roles.
2. Stakeholder needs assessment for the ecological integrity assessment and data platforms.
3. Development of wetlands assessment methodology with consultation of biodiversity data experts.
4. Refinement of the technical specifications of a web-GIS platform and updates to the ARCOS Biodiversity Information Management System portal to host wetland data.

·       Collaboration agreements signed with partner institutions.
·       A wetlands stakeholder map of needs and priorities.
·       Technical assessment framework.
·       Draft specifications for the data portals following independent reviews.
·       A pilot of proposed assessment methodology.

The needs assessments and planning process for the wetlands assessment will ensure that the data is demand-driven, appropriate stakeholders are engaged, and that the technical infrastructure to host data is prepared. The aim of the planning phase is to support the project’s design to best serve the biodiversity data components, as well as local needs so that an implementation phase may lead to a robust and useful product.

During the four months of this grant, ARCOS developed a plan for the wetland assessments in close collaboration with relevant Rwandan stakeholders. The result is a clean plan with more focus on data, an assessment, and upgrades to the current ARBIMS system. The implementation of these plans was funded in the fall of 2018.

Dr. Sam Kanyamibwa is the Founder and Executive Director of ARCOS. He is a professional conservationist, with over 25 years of experience in conservation at international level and particularly in Africa. He is an ecologist and ornithologist by training with an MBA in Management and extensive experience in project management.

Kanyamibwa believes that availability of information is the key to sound decisions in natural resources management. Sitting on the steering committees of many government-led projects in Rwanda, he always pushes for evidence-based decision making and planning. This project will therefore allow him and ARCOS to demonstrate the power of data and information for effective management of wetlands in the country.

We receive proposals with exciting objectives and anticipated outcomes that may require more details on partnerships, strategy for sustainability, or technical capacity. When JRS funds a planning phase, we are supporting the applicants and their partners’ time to plan for the success of an implementation project. JRS has had the honor of supporting ARCOS in 2011 and in 2013 in projects that led to the successful development of the ARCOS Biodiversity Information Management System (ARBIMS), a portal serving data for the Albertine Rift region. We are excited for the funding of this planning phase to follow the JRS supported forum held by South African National Biodiversity Institute as part of the African Biodiversity Challenge (ABC) project, that convened and trained nearly 30 Rwandan stakeholders, including ARCOS representatives, in biodiversity informatics. The ABC Project and its forum in Rwanda is a critical pillar of our Capacity Development Program that invests in the importance of national ownership of biodiversity data for decision-making.