Pan-African Conference on Strengthening Information Sharing Infrastructure and Governance Frameworks to Address Human-Nature Conflicts

September 12, 2020

Pan-African Conference on Strengthening Information Sharing Infrastructure and Governance Frameworks to Address Human-Nature Conflicts

 

The 2019 Pan-African Conference on Strengthening Information Sharing Infrastructure and Governance Frameworks to Address Human-Nature Conflicts  was organised by United Nations Development Programme and the Government of Tanzania. The Conference was held at the Sheraton Arusha Hotel Arusha, Tanzania on June 17 – 18 2019.

The Conference was supported by the Government of Tanzania, the United Nations Development Programme, the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, the African Wildlife Foundation, the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development, Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan (RESTEC), the World Wildlife Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the African Union, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

The event brought together stakeholders across a variety of institutions to address issues such as:

  • ​Increasing the level of trans-boundary political commitment to prevent, combat and eradicate illegal exploitation and illegal trade in wild fauna and flora.

  • Enhancing information sharing on wildlife and forest crimes between and across agencies at national and international levels.

  • Developing a shared spatial data infrastructure  or a Command and Control Center  (CCC) at a regional level (SADC, LATF and Horn of Africa) to support economically challenged states in sharing information on Human-Nature Conflicts.

  • Improving the financial mechanism of African states to continue their efforts to address the challenges related to illegal wildlife trade.

  • Improving governance, integrity and enhance regional, inter-regional cooperation.

  • Increasing the capacity of source and transit states in detecting illegal wild fauna and flora products including in the exit and transit points.

  • Promoting the participatory approach with economic development and community livelihoods through sustainable use of wild fauna and flora.

  • Reducing, preventing and eliminating the economic, security and stability impact of wildlife crime.

  • Enhancing capacity, information, advocacy and public awareness.

A notable achievement of the conference was a unified vision in scaling up the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System in Africa through a dedicated Command and Control Center.
The output of the conference was also discussed during the sidelines of the TICAD 7 Conference held in Yokohama in the same year.