EU pumps P77m into KAZA
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday November 5, 2025 10:01
KAZA is the world’s largest terrestrial TFCA covering parts of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe and stretching across 520,000 square miles (approx. 1,346,800 square kilometres) that boasts both the Okavango Delta and the Victoria Falls, forests, wetlands, some of Africa’s greatest river systems and a natural beauty that is amongst the world’s wonders.
The grant, unveiled yesterday at the First Africa Biodiversity Summit, is a four-year programme known as the Green Growth for KAZA and runs under the EU’s NaturAfrica initiative to support TFCAs in the SADC region. The support will deliver measurable conservation impact at scale, create livelihood opportunities through Bankable Nature Solutions and innovative finance, and improve governance through strengthening the KAZA Secretariat, which is based in Kasane.
“It is now common knowledge that Botswana is facing fiscal challenges owing to the diamond market performance,” said Environment and Tourism minister, Wynter Mmolotsi. “The EU NaturAfrica project we are launching today has all of its intended outcomes of enhancing a green economy, and I guess this is where the diversification is. “This is in sync with the government's strategy to diversify the country's income and ensure that biodiversity and our natural capital add more to the Gross Domestic Product than what it is currently doing.”
For her part, the EU Ambassador to Botswana and SADC, Petra Pereyra, explained that NaturAfrica enjoys a total contribution estimated at €1.4 billion from EU members. The initiative, adopted by the EU in 2022, works in 35 priority landscapes across the continent, including in the Sahel, Congo Basin, the Great Rift Valley and across the trans-frontier conservation areas in southern Africa. The areas cover roughly 1.5 million square kilometres of protected and conserved ecosystems, including tropical forests, savannas and wetlands of global importance and are home to nearly 78 million people.
“NaturAfrica combines biodiversity conservation with social and economic development, ensuring that local communities, particularly women, youth, and indigenous people, benefit directly from conservation efforts,” she said.
She described the KAZA region as “one of the most extraordinary landscapes on the planet”, noting that it is a living example of how biodiversity and human well-being are deeply interconnected across borders.
“Yet, like in many regions, it faces growing pressures from climate change, land use, and demand for development,” Pereyra said.
KAZA Secretariat executive director, Nyambe Nyambe, said that although the region was wealthy, with about 19 national parks and 85 forest reserves, unlocking its economic value would require the establishment of a viable and sustainable green economy.
He said one key objective would be to assess trends, define development scenarios, and develop integrated development plans and the associated investment-ready projects.
“There is a need for projects that will change the complexion of KAZA, uplift the lives of the people, work across sectors, and also attract sustainable green finance. “To do this, we have to derive integrated development plans, and what we've done already, subject to approval by the partner states, is the assessment of the trends and development scenarios,” Nyambe said.
The First Africa Biodiversity Summit kicked off on Sunday with more than 500 delegates from across the continent. President Duma Boko is due to deliver the summit’s opening address on Wednesday.