WWF’s ambitious conservation agenda in Africa is underpinned by an Inclusive Conservation and Human Rights Based approach.

Conservation is a collective responsibility with collective rewards. Now, more than ever, conservation must be about inclusion rather than exclusion. It must be for all people, everywhere.

It must protect human rights and strengthen the voices of the marginalized. It must support equity, resource rights, and benefit sharing. It must bring people together to address our common problems for the good of everyone.

To strengthen our inclusive conservation approach, and unite people in a coalition to achieve coherent and coordinated conservation at scale we will:

● Create space for genuine discussion and learning
● Reach across boundaries to ensure voices are heard
● Strengthen our partnerships with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), the private sector, governments, and civil society
● Implement robust environmental and social safeguarding frameworks

The urgent challenge of Africa’s development needs, coupled with the intensification of climate change and nature loss, demand incremental and transformative innovations. Complex interconnected challenges and rapidly emerging opportunities require us to adapt, be creative, try new approaches, and design and scale up innovative solutions.

We will work closely as a Network – practices, country, national, and regional offices – together with external partners to identify issues, define challenges and opportunities, develop innovative ideas across all areas of our work, pilot new ideas and take validated solutions to scale quickly for conservation in Africa.

We are striving to be more agile; have the courage to experiment; fail quickly and collect the learnings; to be proactive rather than reactive.

As the baseline for innovation to flourish we will create a culture of innovation among individuals, teams, and the wider organization.

We are part of a global network supporting conservation in Africa. To achieve our ambition, we must go beyond business as usual. We must make connections between sectors and across scales. We must change the way we think about conservation – integrating it into the African development narrative and making nature everyone’s business. We must break down the barriers, enhancing collaborations and ensuring that all our programs – country, landscape, and regional – are integrated vertically, horizontally, and thematically to deliver benefits for people and nature.

Horizontal Integration – working across landscapes and country boundaries
Vertical Integration – from local to global
Thematic Integration – across thematic areas and sectors