Resource Africa
Resource Africa was founded in 1991 in Zimbabwe. It has played a key role in promoting a people centred, rights based approach to conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources as a development strategy in southern Africa and internationally. We believe in a socially and environmentally just future that promotes sustainable, resilient livelihoods and enhanced opportunities for rural people, based upon recognition of and respect for their rights, to sustainably manage the natural resources on which their livelihoods depend. Our approach is based on respect for local cultures and traditions, is science based and demand led.
We collaborate with partners, primarily rural communities, and network of technical experts from diverse fields who inform our work and in Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, whose goals we support in collaboration with the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations (NACSO) and the Southern African Trust.
RA’s main interventions are targeted at facilitating the opening up of space for dialogue with and input of local communities in their own voices in policy and decision making processes and platforms on their rights to sustainable use, environmental, social and economic justice and recognition of their knowledge and role in managing their resources, in order to influence policy. To achieve this, RA amplifies rural voices through sharing knowledge, identifying opportunities for policy influence, and linking communities with broader networks, social movements, government agencies, NGOs and technical experts who can provide additional support, evidence, and insights. In doing so, we ensure that resource management concerns such as land and resource tenure, governance, ethnicity, gender equality, intergenerational dialogue, and equity are brought to the fore. We provide technical support and legal advice to enable these complex processes to be effectively and strategically negotiated.
RA also supports demand-led capacity development of its partners, particularly strengthening of community-led institutions and communicating their perspective to the global public through traditional and digital media.
In the last twelve months, we have successfully supported CLN inputs into various policy making processes with the issue of the Let Africans Decide Open Letter to Western Celebrities and Press Release, which received good press coverage internationally, the launch of the accompanying Let Africans Decide video and follow-up series, coverage of sustainable use rights in prominent
international newspaper, The Guardian, submission of inputs and statements to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Post-2020 Framework discussions, and the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). RA and the CLN have also issued multiple open letters to US and EU policy makers stating the case for sustainable use rights and responses to negative press on
sustainable use as a valid conservation and development approach from international media.
Learn more about Resource Africa here info@resourceafrica.net , @africa_resource , @theresourceafricanetwork
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