Dr. Medard Twinamatsiko is a seasoned manager, academician and researcher with over 15 years of progressive research, academic engagement and management. He has a PhD in Policy Management and Natural Resource Governance and currently teaches in the Department of Environment and Livelihoods Support System. He is also the Director of Innovations and Technology Transfer (CITT)– Mbarara University of Science and Technology having served as a Deputy Director for CITT and the Head of Social Research Department at the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation, MUST.
He has a great passion and experience in Policy Management, Integrated Conservation and Development, and Higher Technical Education Training. He has participated in the pioneering of key methodologies such as Equity framework, Cultural Values Conservation and Governance Assessment tools. At Bwindi and other protected areas in Uganda, Dr. Twinamatsiko has facilitated action research for community-based conservation interventions that link local people to sustainable conservation through enhancement of alternative livelihood options that reduce pressure on Protected Area resources and save the extinction of endemic species such as tropical mountain gorillas.
In this context, he has led the pilot studies of Social and Governance Assessment of Protected Areas methodologies, and Site Assessment for Governance and Equity commonly known as SAPA, GAPA and SAGE (https://www.iied.org/understanding-governance-equity-conservation). He has done several researches around protected areas in the Albertine rift and has been actively involved in developing the equity framework in protected area management with UK partners. He has won and implemented several prestigious international and local conservation and livelihood grants such as from Darwin Initiative, Conservation International, Flora and Fauna International, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund and UNESCO. He has widely published in the area of natural resource governance (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zPpan0gAAAAJ&hl=en) on top of supervising several postgraduate students. Dr. Twinamatsiko is an Africa Oxford Initiative (AfOx) fellow.
