Copy
View this email in your browser 
SUBSCRIBE NOW
Annual Letter from the Africa Regional Director, Alice Ruhweza
February 2, 2021

Happy New Year, Bonne Année Colleagues!

What a year 2020 was, <<First Name>>! The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts will stay in our memory for generations. It brought to the fore the bitter reminder that we must urgently re-balance our relationship with nature for our health and that of the planet.

While a silver lining in such a year is hard to find, I am encouraged by how agile you all were, shifting to virtual working to ensure that we continue our important work to conserve Africa's unique biodiversity, that the 2020 Living Planet Report shows, is under increasing pressure. The crisis is a revelation in a far more literal sense—it is focusing our collective attention on the many injustices and weaknesses that already exist in how we live together. If people were blind to these faults before, it is hard not to see them now.

Your resilience, flexibility, courage, commitment, unity and compassion was unmatched at such an uncertain year. I am particularly proud of our staff who continued to carve out our role —through digital platforms— as an African organisation focused on sustainable relationships between people and nature.

Our Country Offices successfully balanced staff safety and wellbeing with emergency support to partners while having a positive impact on the ground. Some examples of critical contributions to our mission and WWF’s Global Goals throughout 2020 include: 

  • Active restoration of key habitats, including 1400+ hectares of forest and savanna, 400+ ha wetlands, and 20 ha degraded agricultural land;
  • Community forests established (6,700+ ha plantations), management plans developed (110,000 ha) and inventoried (5,200+ ha);
  • Support for community management plans and government partnerships; and
  • Fire protection of savanna and forest landscapes enhanced (209,000 + ha) and firebreaks created (280+ km).

Big thanks also to colleagues who during this period facilitated partnerships of various stakeholders behind the biggest issues of our generation, actions that will catalyze a new movement to protect the African biodiversity. 

Notable mentions include Beyond Tourism and our ongoing initiative to recognise the Top 100 young African conservation leaders. During the year we succeeded to secure funding to work with the African Development Bank and the Green Growth and Knowledge Partnership on a new project on financing natural capital in African development finance. These and much more were captured in our 23 editions of the Africa Weekly Digests and in the quarterly Africa Focus newsletter. 

Thanks to successful New Deal for Nature and People advocacy, we also had 13 African Heads of State signing the Leader’s Pledge for Nature in UNGA 75, hence committing to ambitious actions to achieve a nature-positive world. Let’s push for more signatures, and in endorsing countries, let’s closely monitor implementation and actions to live by those commitments!

In the year, I was also involved in a number of activities such as the Gender Summit (G8) in which I am indebted to Nancy Githaiga for speaking on our behalf on the role of the Maasai community and women in community conservation, the African Development Bank’s E-Policy Seminar on Financing Natural Capital in a Post COVID 19 Africa with contributions from Laurent, Durrel and Jackson, Resilient Leadership during COVID webinar with ABCG, Pardee Future of Sustainable Development webinar, Africa Food Futures and many more.

I am honoured to lead this team and I am optimistic we have what it takes to navigate the new normal in 2021 to build back better. To ensure a Green and Just Recovery, we recommended actions that should be taken by African leaders to influence national Covid-19 recovery plans. The New Year gives us an opportunity to bolster international cooperation to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature and sustainable action towards protecting Africa's nature and natural resources.

This will be embodied in our upcoming Africa Conservation Strategic Plan to ensure we do even better, be more efficient and impactful in our work. As we plan for the New Year, here are some of the events and activities to look forward to:

  • WWF marks 60 years of building a legacy of conservation and building a global legacy of people pioneering change and inspiring a brave new world;

  • Earth Hour 2021: We are preparing for an all virtual campaign that you won’t want to miss. See our 2020 roundup for what to expect;

  • On policy advocacy, we published the Kunming Plan for Nature and People 2021-2030, a discussion paper that aims to adopt an ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework at the CBD COP15 that delivers for nature and people. We will engage with various stakeholders in building the necessary political momentum for a successful UNFCC COP 26 that contributes to building a nature positive world;

  • We will increase transparency in our work by sharing authentic stories from the field, that speak about our challenges and lessons along the way;

  • We will listen deeper to our various stakeholders and get inspiration from our energetic youth across the continent;

  • To launch: The Global Annual Review and the Africa Annual Report in May 2021 alongside our first iMara magazine featuring stories from across the continent;

  • Take a listen: To our first podcast, Voices of Nature will stream via Anchor and SoundCloud carrying the voices of seasoned and upcoming young conservationist in conversation; 

  • Include your signature to lobby our leaders to stand and commit to taking action to reverse nature deterioration. Already 525,300 people have signed the petition that you can join here;

  • Continued commitment to embed Human Rights in nature conservation with support from Country focal points for Environmental Social Safeguards and regional coordinators, Judith Mlanda (East and Southern Africa) and Eric Essomba (Central and West Africa) ahead of the global release of the independent review; and

  • To continue the momentum to secure a New Deal for Nature and People, we plan to have campaigns to lobby heads of state who assented to restore nature and commit to putting nature first. More than 80 Heads of State have now signed the Leaders Pledge for Nature to reverse nature loss by 2030.

As we set our sails for the New Year, know that we each have a role to play to ensure that we safeguard the health of people and that of our planet. I challenge each of you to continue to create a healthier planet for all of us. Let us reinforce our commitment to protect our planet's wildlife and wildernesses, address climate change, and protect the future of people everywhere. 

Every action, big or small, by each of us, makes a difference for our planet, our collective shared home.

With warm regards <<First Name>>,

Alice

Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
Share Share
Copyright © 2020 | WWF Regional Office for Africa
All rights reserved.  

Our mailing address is: 
editor@wwfint.org  

Want to change how you receive these emails?

You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.
Facebook
Twitter
Website