Kenya-Belgium cooperation in the fra m e w o rk o f marine sciences
Vanhaecke D elphine1, Mika O dido2, Jan Mees', Tina M ertens1 and Peter Pissierssens3
1 Flanders Marine Institute, InnovOcean site
Wandelaarkaai 7, B-8400 Oostende, Belgium
E-mail: deIphine.vanhaecke@ vliz.be
2 IOC Sub Com m ission fo r A frica and the Adjacent Island States, UNESCO Regional Office fo r
Eastern Africa, UN G igiri C om plex Block C, PO Box 3 0592-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
3 IOC Project Office fo r IODE, UNESCO/IOC Project Office fo r IODE
Wandelaarkaai 7 /6 1 , B-8400 Oostende, Belgium
Belgium and Kenya have a long tra d itio n o f collaboration in marine sciences. In the early eighties o f
the last century, realizing the im portance o f the w orld ocean, and the many services it provides to
society, and recognizing th a t marine sciences are an essential enterprise in the developm ent o f a
better w orld, the Belgian G overnm ent asked Professor Philip Polk to travel to Kenya and to
investigate the possibilities o f scientific collaboration. This m ission resulted in the start o f the
'Kenya-Belgium cooperation in Marine Sciences' (KBP) in 1985, which knew d iffe re n t successive
phases th a t to g e th e r ran co ntin uo usly fo r more than 1 5 years. The project was very successful w ith
a sign ifican t scientific o utp ut. It knew d iffe re n t sim ultaneous s p in -o ff projects, w ith ram ifications to
many o the r European and East-African countries.
To revitalize th is long lasting collaboration, the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute
(KMFRI) and the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) recently signed a fo rm a l M em orandum o f
Understanding fo r bilateral co llaboration in the field o f marine sciences. This VLIZ-KMFRI
collaboration w ill prom ote partnership in fo llo w in g areas:
• Developm ent and execution o f collaborative research projects.
• U ndertaking jo in t field w ork, research expeditions, experim ents, m on itoring and observation
program m es.
• Exchange o f expertise and exchange o f staff, technical experts and students, including capacity
building.
• Exchange o f data and inform ation.
•
Jointly producing derived products fro m research, data and inform ation.
In May 2013 the governm ent o f Flanders donated its old research vessel Zeeleeuw to the
G overnm ent o f Kenya, which renamed it RV M tafiti, the African Swahili word fo r researcher. VLIZ
installed navigational and sam pling e quipm ent on board and provided tra in in g o f technical and
scientific staff. The arrival o f th is oceanographic research vessel w ill be a m ajor asset fo r KMFRI,
who w ill manage the ship, and fo r marine science at the East African coast in general.
The Intergovernm ental Oceanographic Com m ission o f UNESCO, in particular its program m e on
International O ceanographic Data and Inform ation Exchange (IODE), also has had long collaboration
w ith KMFRI. Building on the Marine Inform ation Exchange program m e between Kenyan and Flemish
in stitu tio n s established in the fram e w o rk o f the Kenya Belgium Project in Marine Sciences in the
198 0 ’s, IODE has developed a robust ‘Ocean Data and Inform ation N etwork fo r A frica ODINAFRICA’. W ith the support o f the Flanders - UNESCO Science T ru st fund, ODINAFRICA has
focussed on the developm ent o f capacity and infrastructure fo r the collection, processing, archival,
analysis, interpretatio n and dissem ination o f data and inform a tion products. This included the
establishm ent and equipping o f the Kenya National Oceanographic Data and Inform ation Centre
(KeNODC). Staffs o f KeNODC and the KMFRI library have been tra in in g on a wide range o f topics
related to marine data and inform a tion m anagem ent. Support was provided fo r strengthening o f the
sea level observation netw ork, preparation o f the Kenya Coastal and Marine Atlas, and developm ent
o f databases and directories crucial fo r the integrated m anagem ent o f the coastal zones (e.g.
oceanographic data, marine species, experts and in stitu tio n s, and projects). ODINAFRICA also
fa cilita te d the repatriation o f data collected in Kenyan waters fro m o the r regional and international
data centres.
References
h ttp ://w w w .v liz .b e /p ro ie c ts /k e n v a /
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