DBENEA is the successor to the Research Programme on Sustainable Use of Dryland Biodiversity (RPSUD).

Dryland scientists from Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania backed by their national institutions, met some seven years ago, and resolved to form a dryland biodiversity research consortium 'the Research Programme on Sustainable Use of Dryland Biodiversity (RPSUD).

The consortium was grounded between 1997 and 1998 and thereafter the collaboration has mounted a consolidated capacity building programme, providing a MSc degree course on dryland biodiversity, a small research grant and supporting information sharing and exchange. The consortium has been guided by regional and global resolutions made at United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) among other processes.

Members of the consortium, major stakeholders and other key players recently reviewed RPSUD's structure and management, against the growing challenges facing the sub-region's dryland areas. The review had recommended a restructuring of RPSUD's programmes into a sub-regional scientific network trust" the Dryland Biodiversity Network for Eastern.