The African Great Lakes Region (AGLR), as delineated by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), covers ten countries and seven major Lake Basins in East and Central Africa, holds approximately one-third of the world’s fresh surface water and supports some 50 million people who rely on the services nature provides for their lives and livelihoods (e.g., food, drinking water, transportation). The AGLR also is rich in biological diversity, including more than 1,400 freshwater fish species. While many of the basins within the AGLR remain in good ecological health, others have suffered significant degradation in the last few decades. Emerging threats from the energy and mining sectors, combined with climate change, are putting the near- and long-term health of even the most intact basins at risk. Recent workshops and publications—including the Great Lakes to Great Lakes Initiative meeting convened by the U.S. Department of State’s Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in February 2015 and the Conservation Strategy for the Great Lakes Region of East and Central Africa published by the MacArthur Foundation and BirdLife International in 2012—have identified information access and regional coordination as key gaps in AGLR conservation efforts. Such cross-fertilization, data sharing and collaboration would encourage conservation at the scale required to avoid and mitigate the challenges communities in these basins face.
The Africa Great Lakes Project Manager will lead TNC’s effort to work with partners to organize and host an African Great Lakes Summit, facilitate long-term connections and create the foundation for a related, web-based information platform to:
Foster much-needed collaboration among a selected group of regional and national stakeholders
Encourage a whole basin approach to lake management.
Increase access to data and best practices.
