ATTA collaboration with African Nature-Based Tourism collaborative platform
With $1,903,000 in funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the African Nature-Based Tourism Collaborative Platform will connect funders to the communities and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) most in need of funding support, with a goal of mobilising at least $15 million to support communities and SMEs in Covid-19 emergency relief efforts and to build greater resilience into the nature-based tourism business model into the future.
Using a bottom-up approach, the platform will gather data on impacts to communities and SMEs from the COVID-19 crisis, enhance knowledge sharing between relevant actors, facilitate the development of funding proposals from communities and SMEs, and make these available to relevant donors.
Project focal geographies include Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Key platform partners include national community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) networks, a data clearinghouse, non-governmental organisations, and donors. WWF will serve as the GEF implementing and executing agency, as well as host the platform.
An African community with a united voice stands a far greater chance of elevating this issue in the global agenda, amongst the many competing and related demands, and the platform will strive to achieve this through strong local leadership and collaboration. While the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated impacts will be felt for some time to come, the data gathered through this platform, the emergency relief funding secured, and the longer-term efforts to build the resilience of the nature-based tourism sector will benefit nature-based tourism in Africa well beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
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