On Friday, September 13, 2024, the conference room at ERAIFT hosted the public defense of the doctoral thesis titled "Contribution to the Analysis of Decentralized and Participatory Governance of Drinking Water: The Contestability of ASUREP in the Peri-Urban Areas of Kinshasa (DRC)." This thesis was defended both in presence and via videoconference by Hyppolite DITONA TSUMBU, a Congolese national, before an international jury composed of professors from ERAIFT, the Catholic University of Louvain, and the University of Kinshasa. The thesis provided a better understanding of ASUREP management, the importance of communication in this management, the need to establish a regulatory body to oversee the expansion of ASUREP in the water sector in Kinshasa, and the impact of the city’s sanitation on the quality of water supplied by ASUREP. Research perspectives were proposed to the attending researchers to enhance the holistic management of ASUREP. Furthermore, it should be noted that this thesis received the 'highest distinction' for its scientific quality. 

ERAIFT thanks the Ministry of Higher and University Education for authorizing it to organize the doctoral program. It also expresses its gratitude to the members of the jury for their commitment and support in the evaluation of this doctoral thesis. ERAIFT also thanks the Catholic University of Louvain, the National School of Water and Environmental Engineering of Strasbourg (ENGEES), as well as the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) for their collaboration

From 02 to 06 September 2024, ERAIFT participated in the training workshop of national focal points "CITES MIKE" and forest rangers training institutions in Central Africa on collecting elephant mortality data, monitoring based on rangers and using real-time operations to combat poachers. This workshop was organized by the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the “École de Faune de Garoua (EFG)” in Cameroon.

The CITES Illegal killing of Elephants (MIKE) Monitoring Programme is a site-related system designed to monitor trends in illegal killing of elephants, building management capacity and providing information to assist range states in making appropriate management and anti-fraud (poaching) decisions. Thus, MIKE aims to help these states improve their capacity to monitor elephant populations, to detect changes in levels of unlawful killing and use this information to ensure more effective enforcement and strengthen the regulatory measures necessary to support enforcement.

Participants in this workshop came from several countries of central Africa, including Cameroon, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and Chad. 

ERAIFT thanks the CITES Secretariat and the École de Faune de Garoua for having been associated to this training workshop and expressed its gratitude to the European Union for its support.

L'ERAIFT a participé à un atelier de formation de formateurs sur les procédures opérationnelles standard (SOP) dans la gestion des produits et spécimens d'espèces sauvages saisis et confisqués provenant du commerce illégal d'espèces sauvages en RDC les 28 et 29 août 2024. L'objectif de l'atelier était de former les acteurs de diverses institutions à la gestion des produits saisis et des spécimens vivants provenant du commerce illégal en RDC conformément aux procédures opérationnelles standard (SOP).

La réunion a regroupé plusieurs parties prenantes, notamment les Directeurs Généraux du Ministère de l'Environnement et du Développement Durable, l'ICCN, des représentants de l'administration provinciale de l'environnement, des représentants du secteur privé, des organisations de la société civile et des institutions académiques, notamment l'ERAIFT.

Après cette formation, les stagiaires pourront à leur tour revenir former d’autres agents au sein de leurs institutions respectives et ainsi contribuer à la vulgarisation du système de gestion et à son appropriation par l’ensemble des parties prenantes.

L'ERAIFT tient à remercier les organisateurs, TRAFFIC et FABS, pour l'organisation de cette conférence. Elle exprime également sa gratitude à l'USAID pour son soutien financier.

From 14 to 18 August 2024, a prospecting mission to the Luki Biosphere Reserve (RB-Luki) was organised by the ERAIFT team in charge of implementing the activities of the project "Evaluation of the value of ecosystem services in the Luki Biosphere Reserve (EVASE_RBL)". This project, led by the ERAIFT-INERA-University of Liège (Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech) consortium with funding from CIFOR-ICRAF, has the main objective of providing robust insight into the economic value of ecosystem services in the Luki Biosphere Reserve (RBL), in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This project is part of the programme called: "Applied research in ecology and social sciences of forest ecosystems in Central Africa (RESSAC)", with funding from the European Union (EU).

The main objective of this mission was to prepare the ground for the next data collection missions. Specifically, it was a question of (i) obtaining written or verbal authorizations for access to the various villages in the study area from local authorities, (ii) contacting resource persons, (iii) identifying the villages that will be concerned by the surveys and (iv) collecting information for the establishment of data collection sheets during the next missions. On behalf of the members of the consortium, ERAIFT thanks the EU and CIFOR-CRAF for the resources made available for the implementation of this project. The school also expresses its gratitude and finally thanks the communities living near the Luki Biosphere Reserve for their cooperation and availability.

From July 31 to August 6, 2024 at ERAIFT and the Kisantu Botanical Garden, members of the said project participated in a training on alternative food value chains to bushmeat with the aim of providing them with the necessary skills to identify, analyze, design a vision, an upgrade strategy and a development plan for a value chain.

The training was funded by University of California, Los Angeles campus (UCLA) in collaboration with the Congo Basin Institute (CBI). Five (5) main activities were organized, namely (1) a theoretical overview on the analysis of food value chains, (2) a guided tour of some tourist and nature conservation sites, (3) a practical exercise in identifying and analyzing value chains, (4) a restitution session and (5) a final evaluation.

This training thus enabled the project members to better prepare themselves to promote the encouraging results of the project through the production of books and/or articles, dissemination and various presentations.

ERAIFT rightly thanks University of Oxford, WCS, GCRF, UNEP-WCMC, UCLA, CBI and European Union for their support to Congolese youth training.

The Director of ERAIFT and Rector of IFA Yangambi, Professor Baudouin Michel, is participating in the launch of the national midterm evaluation committee for the License-Master-Doctorate (LMD) system in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This meeting focuses on presenting the results of the test conducted by the national evaluation committee and on the validation of evaluation tools by Her Excellency the Minister of Higher Education and University. ERAIFT and IFA Yangambi congratulate Her Excellency Madame the Minister, Professor Dr. Sombo Ayanne Safi Mukuna Marie-Thérèse, for this initiative and thank her for the invitation.