Protected and Conserved Areas (PCAs), as managed spaces dedicated to the conservation of nature and biodiversity, are key instruments in sustainable development, safeguarding vital ecosystem services, protecting cultural heritage, or fostering conservation tourism. When managed effectively, they can not only be effective, but can generate revenue and feed income into local economies.
Conservation Strategy Fund’s Global Training Team with David Meyers from Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA) is developing a new, online course on sustainable funding for protected areas in Africa. The course will contribute to The Programme on African Protected areas & Conservation's (IUCN-PAPACO) online course platform, MOOC Conservation, which hosts free courses for stakeholders in protected areas, primarily based in Africa. IUCN-PAPACO is part of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Protected and Conserved Areas Team and is dedicated to developing the management of protected areas in Africa. Its MOOC Conservation course platform plays a key role in building capacity among protected area conservationists and managers.
Through this consultancy, CSF will deliver a self-paced course containing 5-7 modules that gives course students a foundation in PA finance, finance planning, and covers a range of finance solutions available to Protected Areas. The course is based around the recommendations from “Practice Guidance for Conserved and Protected Areas Finance,” which was recently published for the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and authored by David Meyers.
Key outputs include full course syllabus and a draft of all course text, including providing guidance for animations or illustrations and additional reading and materials for further learning. Exercises in the course will require learners to develop a comprehensive finance strategy for a fictional park, building the skills to apply course knowledge to real-world scenarios.
The course will be available on mooc-conservation.org after the conclusion of the consultancy.
