Africa Forward

Climate scientists agree that protecting and conserving 30-percent is the absolute minimum needed to slow down the alarming loss of biodiversity. Sounds like a movement everyone can get behind. And yet…nearly 50 foundations and indigenous rights activists sent a joint letter to the plan’s drafters at the UN, saying that the 30x30 focus on creating new protected lands would, as they write, “lead to human rights abuses across the globe,” with millions evicted from their ancestral lands  

 

Critics say 30x30 is more of the same, fortress conservation, separating nature from people.That’s the debate between Western and African-led conservation models. What is the role of people? Do you protect nature by walling it off from people, or do you put people at the center?

 

This season we’re looking at African-led conservation. You could call it a “new” model of conservation, but its roots are in Africa’s traditional ways of conserving nature. African-led conservation takes a holistic approach, connecting the dots between conservation, climate change and economic development. Above all, it has Africans leading the charge.

 

 In this episode, we’ll look at the linchpin of this model: people.

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In this episode, we’ll look at the economic aspects of conservation. How do we value nature, and how we should be valuing it? We’ll also look at financing conservation, and explore new and innovative ways that might free up more capital and create a sustainable funding pipeline.

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Africa has 30-percent of the world’s biodiversity, with much of it unique to the continent. It also has 1.3 billion people. And like people everywhere, they want social and economic well-being and hope to pass on a good life to their children. Africa’s biodiversity plays a big role in reaching those goals.

 

In this episode, we’ll delve into Africa’s biodiversity – the threats its facing, the ways it’s being preserved, and even restored. Above all, we’ll focus on the biodiversity economy, looking at how biodiversity should be valued. We’ll also explore ways in which Africans can sustainably use their natural resources to forge a new path forward where conservation and social and economic development work in harmony. 

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In this episode host Carol Pineau discusses the need to rethink conservation in Africa from a Western model that walls off Africans, to one that puts people at the center of conservation and sees Africans driving their own conservation agenda. Africans tend to see themselves – not as the owners – but as the stewards of this biodiversity.

 

When you look back at the history of conservation in Africa. The Western model separated people from nature. It was a fortress model. Meanwhile, Africans, who for millennia had co-existed – and protected nature – they were often denied access to their own traditional lands.

Several studies have shown that indigenous groups have been far more successful in protecting biodiversity than the protectionist approach. According to the World Bank, while indigenous people make up just 5-percent of the world’s population, they safeguard 80-percent of the world’s biodiversity.

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Introducing Season 2 of Africa Forward, a podcast supported by The African Wildlife Foundation and produced by FP Studios In this season, host Carol Pineau explores green infrastructure, Africa’s tremendous biodiversity, and how African-led conservation may not only help save endangered species but also the planet. 

The show will also challenge the Western model of conservation. That system, which was started under colonialism, protected nature by walling it off from people. It made it so that Africans, who for millennia had co-existed – and protected nature – could no longer access their own traditional lands

Get ready for a tour of the continent, seeing how African-led conservation is changing the way Africa sees its biodiversity, not just protecting it, but sustainably using it to create a biodiversity economy that can be a driver of social and economic development.

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Big infrastructure projects require big financing deals. But getting to that point often involves ingenuity and innovation. In this episode we explore new methods for financing infrastructure projects in Africa. Co-host Carol Pineau looks at how the Azura Edo power plant in Nigeria overcame a slew of obstacles to get a deal signed.

Later Pineau hosts a roundtable featuring Alain Ebobisse, CEO of Africa50, Acha Leke, Chairman of McKinsey's Africa Region, and Ibukun Awosika, Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria.

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Africa is not only building new roads and airports but also getting wired up for a vast expansion of digital services. Innovations in ICT are helping fill in the gaps when it comes to things like banking and education and is the engine behind creative new businesses throughout Africa. This episode features stories from the tech campus Seme City in Benin, coders like Betelhem Dessie, and startups like poa! Internet.

In the second half of the how, co-host Carol Pineau leads a roundtable discussion with Paula Ingabire, Minister of ICT and Innovation in Rwanda, Brian Herlihy, founder of SEACOM, and Omosalewa Adeyemi, Global Head of Expansion and Partnerships at Flutterwave. 

 

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This episode of Africa Forward highlights how Africans are finding new ways to fund energy projects and how this is creating transformational change on the continent. The episode begins with a story from the reporter Laura Rosbrow-Telem looking at the financing and construction of the Benban Solar Park in Egypt.

Later, co-host Carol Pineau leads a conversation on creating the best energy mix and how to properly fund large-scale projects. Her guests include Vera Songwe, the executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa; Hafez El-Salmawy, a professor of energy engineering at Zagazig University in Egypt; and Ernest Moniz, a former U.S. energy secretary. 

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This episode looks at the promise and potential of infrastructure projects to facilitate transportation and trade on the continent. In the first half, reporter Laura Rosbrow-Telem takes listeners to the Gambia for a ride over the Senegambia Bridge, an important new gateway for Senegal and the Gambia for facilitating trade and commerce in Africa.

Then in the roundtable, co-host Carol Pineau leads a conversation on how investments in roads, bridges, ports, and airports can have a dramatic impact on trade. She also delves into how the newly established African Continental Free Trade Area, the world’s largest trading bloc by number of participants, will galvanize trade on the continent and help make African countries less reliant on the West for economic stimulation. Participants in this discussion include:

Benedict Oramah, President of the African Export-Import Bank

Juliet Anammah, chair of Jumia Nigeria and head of institutional affairs for Jumia Group

Allan Kilavuka, CEO of Kenya Airways

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Introducing Africa Forward, a podcast from Africa50 produced by FP Studios,. Hosts Isha Sesay and Carol Pineau explore infrastructure challenges, successes, and opportunities in Africa.

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