Leading the Change: Civil Society, Rights and Environment: WWF Namibia <b>Problem and context description</b>
	  <p>Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in Namibia is strongly rooted in policy and legislation that grant rights over wildlife and tourism to organised groups of rural communities, called conservancies. Conservancies have their own definitions and criteria for membership, but are generally open to all the residents within an agreed geographic space, including women, youth, indigenous peoples and marginalised ethnic groups. Conservancies provide the governance framework for community engagement in decision-making relating to all aspects of wildlife management, and the allocation of benefits derived from it. There are legal requirements in order to be gazetted as a conservancy, and by May 2016, the conservancy movement involved over 189 000 residents (one in every five rural Namibians) in 82 registered conservancies and one conservancy-like conservation association in Bwabwata National Park.</p>
	  <br>
	  <p>The renowned conservation and financial success of conservancies is however threatened by both external and internal factors. The greatest external threat against the conservation gains of conservancies is the upsurge of wildlife crime mostly against elephant and rhino. This could lead to the decimation of these populations and undermining of conservancy viability. The greatest internal threat against community livelihoods is the fragile institutional and governance arrangements in some of the conservancies. The flow of information, decision-making processes, allocation of conservancy revenues and other resources have become too concentrated within the confines of the committees, thus undermining the wider sense of ownership and collective mobilisation amongst the broad membership.</p>
	  </br>
	  <br>
	  <p>Civil society in Namibia is well organised and coordinated in the natural resources sector, the Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management Support Organisations (NACSO) is generally recognised as the organised voice of civil society organisations and individuals that work with communities and conservation. Formed in the late 1990s, the consortium of nine Namibian CSOs work together to support, promote and strengthen CBNRM.</p>
	  </br>
	  <br>
	  <p>Civil society, though initially strengthened after independence (1990), has over the past ten years regressed, with many CSOs struggling to maintain their operational effectiveness. This is largely due to Namibia’s elevated status as a “Middle Income Country”, which has resulted in a significant reduction of donor funding to CSOs. This also affected financing of CBNRM, with many of NACSO’s member organisations experiencing a substantial reduction in internal financial and human resources, including losing important staff over the past several years.</p>
	  </br>
	  <br>
	  <b>Programme goals</b>
	  <p>The programme has two main goals:</p>
	  <ul>
	  <li>1)	strengthening CBO governance within the Namibia National CBNRM Programme</li>
	  <li>2)	facilitating learning and sharing within the broader “Leading the Change” Programme.</li>
	  </ul>
	  </br>
	  <br>
	  <b>Programme activities</b>
	  <p>WWF Namibia will give support to Namibian CSOs in their national and field level operations, including employment of staff that will work directly with the conservancies. In pursuing their common desired change, the collaborating partners will address the first goal, ”strengthening CBO governance within the Namibia National CBNRM Programme” by striving to meet the three conditions relating to 1) strengthening CBO and CSO capacity; 2) empowerment of individuals within conservancies; 3) equitable benefits distribution within conservancies and communities.</p>
	  </br>
	  <br>
	  <p>In pursuing the second goal related to facilitating learning and sharing within the broader programme, WWF In Namibia will recruit a part time coordinator to collaborate with WWF Sweden and other WWF programme offices in developing and managing a purpose and demand driven learning and sharing programme that will allow all participating countries to participate equally through the contribution of their experiences, tested approaches, tools, methodologies and materials.</p>
	  </br>