Kahindo, C.,  Theeten , F.,  Cael, G.,  Noé, N.,  Manuana, J.-P.,  Kasajima, M.,  Tchibozo, S. & Mergen, P. 2010. ‘Biodiversity Information in developing countries: opportunities and challenges for promoting TDWG standards in Africa’. The Processdings of TDWG 2010 Annual Conference of the Taxonomic Database Working Group. Book of abstracts. Woods Hole : Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), 13. ISBN: ISBN will be applied .

Résumé de colloque

Biodiversity Information in developing countries: opportunities and challenges for promoting TDWG standards in Africa
Charles Kahindo¹, Theeten Franck², Cael Garin², Noé Nicolas³, Manuana Jean‐Pierre⁴, Kasajima Motonobu⁵, Tchibozo Sévérin⁶, Mergen Patricia<sup>2

1</sup> UOB, Université Officielle de Bukavu, DR Congo, ckahindo[at]yahoo.com;
² Royal Museum For Central Africa (RMCA), Tervuren, Belgium;
³ Belgian Biodiversity Platform, ULB, Brussels, Belgium;
⁴ CEDESURK, Centre de Documentation de l’Enseignement Supérieur Universitaire et de la Recherche de Kinshasa, Kinshasa, DR Congo;
⁵ UniversiTIC, DR Congo;
⁶ CERGET, Centre de Recherche pour la Gestion de la Biodiversité et du Terroir, Cotonou, Benin

Africa is endowed with a great biological diversity and many countries in eastern, central, and southern parts have embarked on developing databases for sustainable management of specimens and collections. Recent and ongoing expeditions on the continent are likely to produce valuable data from poorly known areas.

With awareness raised, there is increased willingness to share data within African countries at national, regional and international levels. It has been realized that there is a great potential for biodiversity information techniques to provide a platform for developing countries to apply state of the art bioinformatics methods to large datasets, in a practical way in order to promote networking and to address pressing issues of biodiversity conservation and management. Many governmental and non‐governmental bodies have demonstrated interest in this field of activities.

GBIF and the Belgian Development Cooperation financed project CABIN (Central African Biodiversity Information Network) have played a pioneering role in supporting local initiatives in several African countries in terms of capacity building for data digitizing and TDWG standards dissemination. However a number of challenges still have to be addressed to allow African countries to fully benefit from advanced information technologies and to contribute extensively to worldwide initiatives:

• Need for infrastructure to enable large scale digitalization and related specimens preservation
• Overall limited funding compared to the challenges
• Need for more involvement from the local related policies
• Insufficient means for applying good governance guidelines

At TDWG 2009, it was identified that there is a need for an Interest Group on Biodiversity Information in Developing Countries. It is the aim of the authors to be the African voice of this new Interest Group.

This talk will give an overview of the current state of the art in Africa, highlight the challenges and the efforts to overcome them, by reporting on recent Biodiversity Information related projects and capacity building initiatives. To conclude, a work plan will be suggested to set up the new Interest group on Developing Countries concretely.

gbif.africamuseum.be/CABINPortal/ (CABIN Portal CEDESURK, Kinshasa)
gbif.africamuseum.be/CABINPortal/ (Mirror at RMCA, Tervuren Belgium)
Powered by BioCASE (Biological Collection Access Services): www.biocase.org

_{The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from DGDC (Belgian Development Cooperation), CUD (Commission universitaire pour le Développement), VLIR‐UOS (Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad – University Development Cooperation), AUF (Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie), FFI (Fonds Francophone des Inforoutes), UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), European Commission. RMCA (Royal Museum for Central Africa)}