Dorcas Rumano

Zimbabwe will host the African Union-European Union (AU-UE) Wildlife Economy Summit in the most iconic tourism location of Victoria Falls from 23 to 25 June 2019, Harare Post can reveal.

The AU-EU Wildlife Economy Summit launch is first of its kind in the African continent.

The inaugural summit of the Wildlife Economy Initiative will help set the African continent on a new path to improve the prospects for both people and wildlife.

The agenda of the summit is to ensure that communities in conservation livelihoods areas appreciate the wildlife and biodiversity that provide solutions for reducing poverty and provide jobs amongst rural communities.

The AU-EU Wildlife Economy meeting seeks to expand the conservation areas and empower people to be meaningful and effective partners in growing measurable economic opportunities.

The initiative will also contribute to making conservation profitable and sustainable by unlocking financing and partnerships through enabling responsible investors to help build a ‘nature-based economy’.

In addition, the summit aims to support African Governments by gaining conservation-enabling investments through generating opportunities to create jobs, national wealth and to secure wildlife for the future. The summit will also put the right operating environment in place and experts will work with Governments on how to deliver on that.

The call for this new vision of Africa was initiated by the Rwandan President, Paul Kagame during his tenure as AU chairman. The vision that President Kagame gave to African Union leaders is that the key importance of conservation to Africa’s successful future, is that its citizens need to take the lead, in partnership with like-minded global organisations, in the conservation agenda of the continent.