Mr. Bouajila Essifi is currently working as an environmental, geospatial and Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist at the Institut des Regions Arides (IRA), a government managed research center in Tunisia, where he focuses on land degradation assessment, drought monitoring, and building national capacities since 2005. Mr. Essifi has served as a consultant at FAO, and trainer and instructor of GIS, cartography, spatial analysis, image processing, and geospatial information. He has also been involved in national and international projects addressing natural resources monitoring, and land and water resources management and conservation. Related to his work on space technology and earth observation, he has benefited from many academic grants and awards from the EU COST Action, the UNOOSA, the UN-SPIDER, the RADI, and the Fulbright Board. Mr. Essifi has also contributed to the publication of numerous research papers and technical reports on land use and land cover mapping to improve the management of natural resources in Tunisia.

Mr. Essifi is currently serving as regional councilor for Northern Africa of the African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE).