A Global Partnership on Wildlife Conservation and Crime Prevention for Sustainable Development

The illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a global threat. The problem is particularly acute in Africa and Asia, where iconic species – the African elephant, white and black rhinos, and pangolins – are being poached to extinction. About 33,000 elephants are poached every year for their ivory. Rhino poaching has also reached crisis levels. In 2017, 1,028 rhinos were poached in South Africa, up steeply from 13 in 2007, according to TRAFFIC. As species are poached and illegally harvested at increasingly unsustainable levels, wildlife crime has become the fourth most lucrative illegal business after narcotics, human trafficking, and weapons.

The presence of wildlife in protected areas ensures that an ecosystem can function and maintain natural capital (soil, forests, air, water, etc.) As natural resource crime such as poaching increases, it results in environmental degradation. This adversely affects ecosystem services, which in turn affects the survival of these communities who depend upon these services for livelihoods, fuel and food. The cost of environmental crime to developing countries is estimated to be more than US$70 billion a year (World Bank 2014).

To respond to the growing crisis and international call for action, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in June 2015 launched the “Global Partnership on Wildlife Conservation and Crime Prevention for Sustainable Development” program also known as the Global Wildlife Program (GWP).

What does the Global Wildlife Program aim to do?

The GWP is a World Bank-led, GEF-funded global partnership that promotes wildlife conservation and sustainable development by combatting illicit trafficking in wildlife. This seven-year, US$131 million grant program is expected to leverage an additional US$704 million in additional co-financing from a wide range of partners to promote conservation investments across Africa and Asia. By approaching the poaching crisis holistically through various country projects and a broader global project, it seeks to reduce both the supply and demand that drives the illegal wildlife trade and protect species and habitats through integrated landscape planning.

GWP’s priority and immediate focus are combating wildlife poaching, trafficking, and demand. 

Through its global and country projects, the GWP will:

• Promote community-based natural resource management and tourism development
• Promote landscape-level management and human-wildlife conflict mitigation tools
• Increase law enforcement efforts in-country through improved legislation, judiciary and prosecution
• Raise awareness of demand reduction through targeted campaigns that encourage behavior change.
• Help countries achieve their biodiversity goals: It will support the implementation of country priorities identified in the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, Elephant Action Plan and other wildlife and tourism national strategies.
• Accelerate learning: It will develop an online repository of information and conduct training and capacity building workshops to ensure knowledge exchange between countries, partners and other stakeholders. It will provide opportunities for regional and global knowledge exchanges.
• Enhance collaboration: It will foster intergovernmental cooperation, utilize geospatial and surveillance tools, increase intelligence sharing to track criminals, collaborate on efforts around anti-money laundering, capture lessons learned, and apply innovative communication strategies. In addition, it will include a component to promote best practices in ports and collaboration between African and Asian countries and agencies involved in reducing maritime transport of illegal wildlife products, especially ivory.
• Strengthen partnerships: It will build synergies with the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). It is a collaboration between the CITES Secretariat, INTERPOL, UNODC, the World Customs Organization and the WBG, which has been a partner to ICCWC since 2010.
• Implement a monitoring and evaluation framework:  It will develop and deploy a monitoring system for the program to track program progress and serve as an integral tool to promote synergies amongst national projects.
• Promote donor coordination: As part of the ongoing engagement with key international donors, the program will serve as a platform to assess the current state of international funding to tackle illicit trafficking in wildlife. The GWP released the first-ever review of international donor funding for combatting illegal wildlife trade in Africa and Asia, which shows that over US$1.3 billion was committed by 24 international donors since 2010. The report serves as a baseline the donor community can build upon, which in consultation with recipient countries, can establish the future state vision for IWT financing. This will facilitate sharing of lessons learned and inform strategic efforts to fill financing gaps for priority intervention areas.