Focused Conservation, Uganda Conservation Foundation and U.S. INL partner with Uganda Wildlife Authority to strengthen law enforcement capability
Effective wildlife crime enforcement requires more than arrests and seizures. It requires investigators and intelligence officers who are equipped with the skills, knowledge and professional standards needed to identify criminal networks, develop cases and ultimately support successful prosecutions.
In August 2026, Focused Conservation (FC), working in partnership with the Uganda Conservation Foundation (UCF) and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), delivered two intensive one-week training programmes to UWA investigators and intelligence officers at Murchison Falls National Park. The programs were delivered in accordance with the agreement between the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), Focused Conservation along with support from UCF and the Deputy Head of the Uganda Wildlife Crime Unit.
Across two trainig events, 54 UWA Rangers participated in the training, with 27 participants attending each programme. The first course was conducted from 3–7 August 2026, followed by the second from 10–14 August 2026.
Training Designed Around Operational Needs
The programs were not developed as generic classroom courses. They followed a comprehensive training needs assessment designed to identify priority operational capability gaps within UWA. Working in collaboration with FC partner Perception DXS, the FC Training Team developed a program specifically designed to address those identified needs.
Four core capability areas formed the foundation of the training:
- Ethics, Integrity and Human Rights in Law Enforcement
- Criminal Investigation Techniques and Procedures
- Criminal Intelligence Collection and Analysis
- Case Management and Prosecution Preparation
Classroom instruction was combined with practical exercises and realistic scenarios, allowing participants to move beyond theory and apply investigative and intelligence skills in circumstances designed to replicate the challenges they may encounter in the field. This practical approach reflects FC’s broader philosophy: equip, educate and empower law enforcement to take on the organized criminal networks driving wildlife trafficking.
A key component of the programme was the Legacy Institute, a bespoke capability-development platform developed by Perception DXS.
Legacy is designed to go beyond traditional training delivery. It brings together digital learning, practical exercises, scenario-based decision-making, competency frameworks and mentor-led validation. Rather than simply measuring whether a participant attended a course, the platform provides an opportunity to demonstrate and document how effectively newly acquired knowledge and skills can be applied. For wildlife crime investigators and intelligence officers, that distinction is important. The ultimate objective is not simply increased knowledge, it is improved operational performance.
Each participant completed a pre-course competency assessment establishing a baseline of knowledge and understanding and following the training, participants completed a final written assessment and participated in a Final Tactical Exercise (FTX) based on a realistic operational scenario.
The FTX provided participants with an opportunity to bring together the investigative, intelligence and case-management skills developed throughout the programme and apply them in a practical environment. The results demonstrated significant and positive improvement in participant knowledge and understanding across the capability areas covered by the training. For FC, these results are an important measure of success, but they are only one part of the process.
Training Doesn’t End When the Classroom Does
One of the most important elements of the program is what happens after participants leave the training environment.
Focused Conservation provides structured 30-day and 90-day follow-up engagements designed to reinforce learning and assess how participants are applying their new skills in the workplace. In-country Technical Advisors from FC also continue to provide day-to-day mentorship, operational guidance and professional advice. This continued engagement allows participants to receive support as they encounter real-world investigative and intelligence challenges. It also provides opportunities to demonstrate, document and further develop their competence over time.
The approach is intended to create sustainable skills rather than short-term training outcomes.
A Partnership Built Around Capability Development
The success of the Murchison Falls programs reflects the strength of the partnership between Focused Conservation, Uganda Conservation Foundation, Uganda Wildlife Authority and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Each organization brings a different capability to the partnership, but the objective is shared: strengthening the ability of Ugandan law enforcement to investigate wildlife crime and disrupt the criminal networks behind it.
For Focused Conservation, this work represents an important part of its broader commitment to supporting law enforcement agencies in Africa. FC does not view wildlife trafficking simply as a conservation problem. The illegal movement of wildlife is increasingly connected to sophisticated transnational criminal networks that exploit the same routes, corruption, logistics and financial systems used by other forms of organized crime.
Strengthening the investigative and intelligence capabilities of agencies such as UWA is therefore critical to moving beyond individual seizures and arrests toward investigations capable of identifying the people, networks and structures operating behind wildlife trafficking.
Building a Sustainable Future for Wildlife Crime Investigations
The two August programs successfully trained 54 UWA Rangers and strengthened priority investigative, intelligence and professional capabilities.
At Murchison Falls, the classroom was only the beginning. The long-term objective is to ensure that UWA investigators and intelligence officers have the confidence, competence and professional tools to turn information into intelligence, intelligence into investigations, and investigations into strong cases capable of supporting prosecution.
For Focused Conservation and its partners, that is what meaningful capacity building looks like and ultimately, strengthen the people on the front lines of the fight against wildlife trafficking.
