Building a Sustainable Africa Together.
Our mission is to find integrative solutions which conserve the environment and meet the needs of the developing world.
With an emphasis on in-country capacity building, we serve as a regional hub for international scholars working in the Congo Basin region providing world-class research and training.
By 2050, over 9 billion people are projected to compete for scarce resources on a planet experiencing severe climate change. Our goal is to create a network of multi-disciplinary enterprises focused on innovative solutions to critical challenges. The first is the Congo Basin Institute in Cameroon, Africa, dedicated to finding solutions to climate change, human disease, food and water security, and loss of biodiversity.
With our globally recognized partners, we leverage the diverse resources of universities, industry, government, and development organizations. We’re expanding the existing campus of CBI co-founder International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Yaoundé to include additional research and learning space.
The rainforests of the Congo Basin are being lost at an accelerating rate, causing habitat degradation, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem service declines. Sustaining these forests depends on the presence and movement of animals responsible for dispersing seeds of trees.
Preserving indigenous and local knowledge of the Congo Basin Rainforest.
The Ebony Project is a partnership where business, communities, and researchers work together to protect a valuable timber species, reforest degraded land, address local food security issues, and improve rural livelihoods.
Working with the Congo Basin Institute and Peter Houlihan, the FieldKit team is deploying a series of stations in the Dja Faunal Reserve, one of the largest and best-protected rainforests in Africa.
By determining the suitability of crops in specific locations, researchers can provide advice like planting dates and variety selection so that farmers can mitigate the impact of climate change.
The Congo Basin Institute is a joint initiative of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and UCLA. IITA and UCLA are leading a multi-institutional initiative to develop the Congo Basin Institute to be a model for how universities, NGOs, and private businesses can partner in international development.
Higher education in Central Africa faces numerous challenges. Limited resources and infrastructure mean the brightest students leave their home countries to study or work abroad. This brain drain means those best skilled to solve problems are not in the region.
We offer accommodations for researchers and students in Yaoundé and at our research field stations in the Dja Faunal Reserve. Learn about our labs, field stations, accommodations, and securing research permits.