Rwanda

The Rufford Small Grant offers grants to individuals or small groups for nature conservation projects in non-first world countries that focus on nature/biodiversity issues in non-first world countries, create pragmatic, measurable and long-lasting impact and are a minimum of 12 months duration. The grant must make up a significant part of the total budget and funds must be used predominantly for field-based activities. Applications can be made at any time of the year and these are reviewed once all references have been received.

The Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM), produced by IUCN and the World Resources Institute, provides a flexible and affordable framework approach for countries to rapidly identify and analyse forest landscape restoration (FLR) potential and locate specific areas of opportunity at a national or sub-national level. ROAM can provide vital support to countries seeking to move forward with developing restoration programmes and landscape-level strategies.

In May 2017, the African Great Lakes Conference: Conservation and Development in a Changing Climate was held in Entebbe, Uganda. This conference sought to increase coordination, strengthen capacity, inform policy with science, and promote basin-scale ecosystem management in the region. Because all of the African Great Lakes cross borders, the benefits they offer and the challenges they face are best managed at a basin-wide level.

In 2015, UNEP-WCMC, CCAFS and ARCOS initiated a project focusing on cross-boundary impacts of agricultural development and other forms of land use on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB). The project aims to improve regional coordination and alignment of national-level land use-related policies and plans. To this end, a scenario-guided approach to policy development was adopted, building on the work of the CCAFS scenarios project.

Africa's continental fisheries and development strategy, The Policy Framework and Reform Strategy for Fisheries and Aquaculture in Africa (PFRS), advocates for the sustainable management of aquatic resources for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture development. The ecosystem approach to aquaculture (EAA) is a strategy for the integration of aquaculture within the wider ecosystem to ensure sustainable development, equity and resilience of interlinked social-ecological systems.

The three largest lakes of the African Great Lakes system, Victoria, Tanganyika and Malawi, have distinctive fisheries and histories of fisheries management. All three provide essential and high quality food to their riparian populations and a range of other ecosystem services. Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika have highly commercialised and lake-wide, open-water fisheries. In Lake Malawi the commercial fishery is largely confined to the southern end of the lake, mainly exploiting demersal fish. Artisanal and low-level subsistence fisheries occur throughout all three lakes.

The Lake Victoria Nile Perch (NP - Lates niloticus) fishery is the most valuable freshwater fishery in Africa and since the 1990s has supported an export-orientated fishery that generates a significant source of revenue for the population of the three riparian countries. The catch of NP has averaged 250,000 tonnes per year for the last two decades. During the last decade, the fishery has faced serious problems of debt and overfishing and high levels of non-compliance to regulations in the fishing and post-harvest sub-sectors.

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a partnership of the riparian states that has been active since 1999. It seeks to develop the river in a cooperative manner, share substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security through its shared vision of sustainable socioeconomic development through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources. The NBI is based in Entebbe, Uganda and includes Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Creating welfare and jobs in rural areas is a development policy priority for Africa. Seventy percent of Africa 's rural populations derive their livelihoods from agriculture, and the number of young people living in rural areas is continuously growing and will continue to do so over the next decades.

NEPAD's Food and Nutrition Security Programme strives to reduce hunger and malnutrition of the vulnerable populations using evidence-based policies and programmes. The programme undertakes research, builds capacity for policy makers and programme experts across sectors and supports implementation. This programmes exists within NEPAD's Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which is concerned with reducing poverty and hunger through agriculture-led growth.

Fish is one of the leading export commodities for Africa, with an annual export value of 14 billion USD. However, many African nations lack the capacity to utilize their aquatic assets while simultaneously protecting them from degradation and overuse. The full economic and social benefits of the fish trade have yet to reach its full potential. Without an adequate governance structure, fisheries and the fish trade will not be adequately safeguarded for the benefit of future generations.

The NEPAD Climate Change Fund aims to strengthen the resilience of African countries to climate change by building national, sub-regional and continental capacity. Established in 2014 by the NEPAD Agency with support from the Government of Germany, the Fund offers technical and financial assistance to AU Member States, Regional Economic Communities and institutions that meet the eligibility criteria and clearly defined targeted areas of support of the fund. 

The National Geographic Society awards grants for research, conservation, education, and storytelling through its Committee for Research and Exploration. All proposed projects must be novel and exploratory and be of broad interest.

The Mount Elgon Regional Ecosystem Conservation Programme (MERECP) is a programme of the East African Community whose oversight, coordination and supervision was delegated to the Lake Victoria Basin Commission. It was designed by the IUCN through multi-stakeholder consultations, discussions and interaction with the East African Community Secretariat (EAC), governments of Kenya and Uganda through relevant national government agencies, local government/districts, user groups, NGOs, private sector, local communities, conservationists and researchers.

The foundation's overall goal for the Great Lakes region is to prevent or reduce biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and to sustain ecosystem benefits for human well-being. MacArthur focuses on funding projects in the Lake Victoria, Upper Nile, Tanganyika, Malawi/Nyasa, and Turkana/Omo Basins. Grant making is informed by extensive consultations with a range of stakeholders. MacArthur believes that understanding ecosystem benefits is necessary, but insufficient to spur effective conservation responses at the appropriate scales.

The Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (LVFO) _is a regional organization under the East African Community (EAC) that is responsible for coordinating and managing fisheries and aquaculture resources of the East African Community. The organization was formed through a Convention signed in 1994 by the three EAC Partner States of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and has since been revised to accommodate all partner states of the EAC.

Lake Victoria is the second largest freshwater body in the world. Over the last four decades, however, the lake has faced a number of environmental problems including pollution, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction and soil erosion. It is estimated that the lake 's indigenous fish species have been reduced by 80% and over 70% of the forest cover in the catchment area has been lost. In addition, the water quality in the rivers flowing into the lake continues to carry increasing amounts of silt and nutrients.

The East African Community has designated Lake Victoria and its Basin as an "area of common economic interest" and a "regional economic growth zone" to be developed jointly by the Partner States. Lake Victoria is the focus of new attention following the declaration by the East African Community Heads of State that a joint programme be developed for the overall management and rational utilization of the shared resources of the Lake.

Hydrological regimes, including inter- and intra-annual water level fluctuations, are key drivers of productivity and structure in freshwater ecosystems in Africa, where inland fisheries are a vital source of income and protein. Using a synthesis of seventeen standardized food web models of thirteen African lakes and reservoirs, this study explored the relationship between inter- and intra-annual water level fluctuations and sixteen ecological attributes associated with ecosystem configuration, productivity and maturity.

The hydrology of Lake Victoria is, to a large extent, a function of the balance between rainfall on and evaporation from the lake surface. Historical climate variability has resulted in significant fluctuations in the water level in the lake. Climate models predict changes to the balance between precipitation and evaporation over the coming decades, with potentially serious impacts on the lakes water balance. These impacts have implications for the approximately 30 million people living around the lake, as well as further downstream in the Nile River basin.