With the goal of assisting communities and SMEs involved in nature-based tourism with COVID-19 relief and recovery funding, the African Nature-Based Tourism Platform connects funders with beneficiaries across 11 Southern and East African countries.
The online platform is the result of a major collaboration between the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), ATTA, Africa Ignite, The Nature Conservancy Africa and the Global Environment Facility – who have donated nearly US$2m in funding to the cause – and several others.
The platform launched in April this year and hosts data from surveys to measure the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on communities and SMEs. It also serves as a hub for everyone involved in the sector to share and access information.
Now, the focus is on actively facilitating access to finances for SMEs, bringing funders closer to the people and communities on the ground.
The platform has so far conducted more than 525 surveys among communities and SMEs across the project focal countries, and data suggests a reduction of 58% of the staff complement across the enterprises surveyed as of November 18.
“The goal is to mobilise at least US$15m to support communities and SMEs to build greater resilience into the NBT business model into the future. The types of financial support we are looking to make available to beneficiaries include grants, loans, equity, and quasi-equity, among others,” explains Dr Nikhil Advani, Project Manager and Director of Climate, Communities and Wildlife for WWF.
“The sources for this financial support include governments, individual donors, institutional donors, banks, and investors, among others,” he adds.