The IGAD Environmental Security Assessment Training was conducted 21 – 30 June 2010 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the Ghion Hotel. It was attended by twenty three senior experts and officials drawn from Ministries of Agriculture, Water Resources, Environment, and Finance and Planning of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda as well as from IGAD secretariat, CEWARN, and ICPAC. Mr. Mersie Ejigu, Executive Director of Partnership for African Environmental Sustainability (PAES) offered the training. Guest lecturers included: Professor Belay Simane of the College of Development Studies of Addis Ababa University and Mr. Charles Akol of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

The financing agreement for the implementation of the IGAD Thema of the AMESD programme has been signed on the 11th May 2010 by Professor L. Ogallo, ICPAC Director, at the headquarter of the AMESD programme in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

As a major approach of promoting strategic partnership and alliances, IGAD and IUCN established a biennial meeting of directors of conservation related ministries and finance related ministries from the member states. The first such forum was held in Mombasa, Kenya in 2007 where very important recommendations were made. The Entebbe conference like the previous one in Mombasa offered rare opportunity for high level consultations between the people who control the funds (Finance and Planning) and those who manage the natural resources (Directors of Conservation). These policy  and decision makers have at all times in this forum confirmed that they rarely meet at country level to discuss natural resources utilization although it is the backbone of their economies.

UNESCO has initiated network Integrated Shared Aquifer Resource Management (ISARM) in many regions in the world.  In Africa there are the ISARM SADC, ISARM West Africa initiatives that were launched earlier. Following up the success of these ISARM initiatives and having a dire need to expand these efforts to Eastern Africa, the ISARM- IGAD initiative was launched during this meeting on 23-25 March 2010 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In October 20-26, 2008 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) facilitated a tour of IGAD parliamentarians and journalists to the drylands of Kenya, to learn firsthand from local communities about the challenges and successes in conservation and sustainable livelihood development. The tour was organised in partnership with the Kenyan Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMP) and the Centre for Minority Rights and Development (CEMIRIDE). The group of Members of Parliament from IGAD countries accompanied by media people visited Naibunga conservancy in Laikipia North district, Kalama Community conservancy in Samburu East District and Gubadida village in Garbatula District. There was general consensus that values and other services in the arid and semi arid lands are not understood making their potential utilisation minimum. The eight MPs from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia said the tour had a profound effect on their understanding of conservation issues among communities living in dry areas.