ILRI has always recognised the importance of metadata which had led it to in the past document its geospatial data in the form of word and other text format summaries. Recently, it adopted a standard system (ArcCatalog) that follows the established Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standards with the aim of becoming a node for the CGIAR in an initiative by the Consortium for Spatial Information (CGIAR-CSI).

The CGIAR-CSI is an initiative of the many geospatial scientists within the Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), linking the efforts of CGIAR scientists, national and international partners, and others working to apply and advance Geospatial Science for International Sustainable Agriculture Development, Natural Resource Management, Biodiversity Conservation, and Poverty Alleviation in Developing Countries. It works to facilitate collaboration and capacity building for Data Sharing, Data Dissemination, and Geospatial Analysis.

The initiative has seen previously existing historical data documented in an ongoing process that targets the entire spatial data residing in the various participating institutions. The documentation upon uploading on the geonetwork portal has eventually enabled faster exchange and sharing of metadata with other organisations within the CGIAR-CSI. ILRI has fully participated in this pilot project (consisting of five centres (CFOR, CYMMYT, IWMI, CIAT and ILRI), pre to the project being introduced in all the centres with its portal hosted at http://giske.ilri.cgiar.org.

The overall process here at ILRI has not been restricted to documentation and exchange of metadata but also include the setting up of an interactive map server (ArcIMS) and an ArcSDE enterprise geodatabase for internal use.