The NTFP and Indigenous Crops Research and Promotion Unit has changed its name and is currently known as: Centre for Indigenous and Ethnic Foods (CIEF).

The Unit has expanded its activities to include various local food resources, other than NTFPs, with a particular focus on root, tuber and banana (RTB) crops. The project "RTB Breeding: a Consolidated Investment" aims to sustainably increase the productivity of these crops and strengthen the resilience of RTB-based production systems to climate change, while ensuring food security. To overcome the challenges of genetic erosion and pest and disease pressures on RTB, the programme focuses its efforts on:

(i) the creation of new tolerant varieties thanks to the significant diversity available in South Kivu,

(ii) the census and collection of different yam cultivars in the villages of Idjwi, Uvira, Fizi, Walungu, Kabare, Mwenga in South Kivu, and Beni, Lubero and Butembo as well as those of Mongala,

(iii) the promotion of promising agricultural practices, such as Climate Smart Agriculture, to increase productivity and mitigate negative climate impacts on the RTB-based production system,

(iv) the structuring of the RTB seed system in order to ensure the availability and quality of seeds

(v) optimization of post-harvest management techniques to reduce losses and improve product quality,

(vi) market segmentation and mapping of value chain actors to better understand market dynamics and strengthen links between producers and consumers,

(vii) the processing and marketing of RTB-based by-products (flour, bread, biscuits, etc.) to diversify sources of income and add value to local products.

The Unit changed its name and began to be called the “Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) and Indigenous Crops Research and Promotion Unit”. In the same year, the Unit expanded its activities to other local food resources, including non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and neglected and underutilized crops (also known as indigenous crops). The activities on indigenous crops aim to increase the resilience of the agricultural sector to climate risks through diversification of agricultural production and to strengthen the fight against hidden malnutrition (anaemia) and other food-related diseases such as overweight, gout, obesity and diabetes.

On the other hand, the activities on NTFPs are mainly aimed at inventorying the food NTFPs exploited by the residents of the PNKB, determining their nutritional composition and conducting a market analysis in order to assess the viability of NTFPs as an income-generating activity (IGA). The Unit strongly believes that the preservation of forest ecosystems would partly involve the promotion of income-generating activities (IGA) for indigenous peoples.

The areas of intervention for the two new sectors are:

(i) identification of species and products used in the region;

(ii) uses: food and medicinal;

(iii) characterization of strains within species;

(iv) the structuring of the seed system;

(v) optimization of agronomic practices;

(vi) promotion of added value and storage and;

(vii) marketing.

It was initiated under the name of URVC (Unité de Recherche et de Vulgarisation des Champignons Edibles) and had as its initial objective to increase the food and nutritional security of households in South Kivu by promoting foods with high nutritional value, resilient to climatic hazards, independent of the season and less demanding in terms of land resources. The areas of intervention in mushroom growing extended over:

(i) seed production (primary, secondary and tertiary);

(ii) the recovery of harvest residues;

(iii) the introduction of species more adapted to local conditions;

(iv) the domestication trial of indigenous strains;

(v) optimization of production techniques;

(vi) added value and use in pastry;

(vii) the transfer of technologies to rural areas;

(viii) connecting producers to the urban market;

(ix) training of stakeholders on good practices and

(x) supervision of students (and other young people) in the form of professional internships and research for final-year dissertations.