Africa Nature risk preparedness workshop held in South Africa

Date：2013-08-19

The Africa Nature risk preparedness workshop took place from the 20th-25th May 2013 at the Golden Gate Highlands National Park. Organized by African World Heritage Fund with the support of the Government of South Africa, this workshop aimed at English-speaking African countries. It gathered 14 site managers from natural World Heritage Sites in Ethiopia, Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, and South Africa. The World Heritage Centre and UICN also attended.

The workshop allowed exploring monitoring and evaluation tools for efficient management of Natural World Heritage properties in Africa; to discuss the methodological and structural framework of risk preparedness plans for Natural World Heritage sites; and for each participant to develop an operational framework for the development of a risk preparedness plan.

In the margins of the Workshop, Africa Nature steering committee meeting was held and brought together WHC, IUCN and AWHF. The meeting discussed progress in the implementation of the start up phase and the possibilities for the development of a second phase. All steering committee members are committed to develop such a follow up phase together and to jointly rise funding for it.

Most of the discussion was on how a follow up phase would look like. Through brainstorming, a list of possible components of the future programme was developed. It was agreed that it would be important to develop further partnerships to be able to develop these components. The meeting then discussed in detail the different components to discuss its relevance and priority, possible partners and donors and possible next steps.