Dr Felly Mugizi Tusiime – Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Program Lead, Africa Innovations Institute Uganda

Dr. Felly Mugizi Tusiime - Biodiversity, Climate Change and Environment Management expert.
Dr. Felly holds a PhD in Environmental Management from Makerere University Uganda and University of Oslo, Norway; a joint Master of Science in Botany from Makerere University Uganda and Imperial College London UK; and a Bachelor of Science (Botany, Zoology, chemistry) degree from Makerere University.
Felly has extensive knowledge and experience in biodiversity, sustainable land management, climate change and environmental management. She works in close partnership with government and non-state actors in Uganda and abroad; providing technical support, advisory services, capacity building/training/sensitisation and public awareness in areas of her expertise.

Dr Felly has worked as lecturer and researcher at prestigious institutions in Uganda and abroad including Makerere, Gulu, Busitema, and Kyambogo Universities in Uganda; the Natural History Museum London UK; National Museum of Kenya Nairobi; Addis Ababa University Ethiopia, Sokoine University of Agriculture Tanzania, and University of Oslo Norway. She is the Head of the Climate Change and Environmental sustainability Program at Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII) in Uganda. She has supported implementation of national and multilateral environment policy and legislation including support for implementation of Uganda’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), and domestication of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She led the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT)-Uganda project as Project Manager (2018-2020), to strengthen government institutions to comply with the transparency requirements of the Paris Agreement. Under her leadership 10 key government ministries in Uganda established an Inter-Ministerial Cooperation Agreement and Memoranda of Understanding, to share greenhouse gas (GHG) data and support implementation of the NDC and Paris Agreement.

Felly is an ambitious researcher and has conducted extensive biophysical field surveys including soil, water, and biodiversity assessment in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. She established a cryptogamicsection to host bryophytes, and a Dendrosenecio plant DNA bank in the National herbarium MakerereUniversity; a Uganda soil bank at Africa Innovations Institute; and supported establishment of Uganda’s key NDC sector GHG inventory systems hosted at Climate Change Department Ministry of Water and Environment. She is a prolific writer with over 10 publications in high impact peer-reviewed scientific journals. Her most recent publication Afro-alpine flagships revisited: Parallel adaptation intermountain admixture and shallow genetic structure in the giant senecios (Dendrosenecios), was selected in 2020 by PloS One, amongst the best publications under the life sciences category.

Felly is an active member of Nature Uganda (NU), which promotes the understanding appreciation and conservation of nature; Climate Action Network Uganda (CAN-Ug), which works with leaders and communities to deal with management of the climate crisis in Uganda; and Gender Climate Change and Agriculture (GCCA) a women’s advocacy organization that promote engendering of climate change action and agriculture in Africa. She is a farmer practicing climate smart agriculture and Sustainable farming to demonstrate that sustainable agriculture should protect the environment and ecosystems services.