WWF Zambia and Musika have signed a cooperation agreement aimed at alleviating poverty in rural Zambia through improved natural resource conservation and sustainable use.
The agreement will see WWF and Musika leverage their different but synergistic core competencies in improving the living conditions of rural farming communities.
Under the agreement, the two institutions will also work together in facilitating increased private sector investment in Zambia and collaborate in facilitating greater access to and provision of non-timber forest products (NTFPs), agricultural-related products and services to farmers who are at the lower end of Zambia’s markets.
WWF Country Director, Ms Nachilala Nkombo and Musika Managing Director, Mr Reuben Banda co-signed the agreement in Lusaka on Monday.
“Musika’s collaboration with WWF is expected to improve access to a broad range of opportunities, technologies and services by the rural poor in the ‘clean’ energy and natural resource utilization sectors that improve incomes and livelihoods, whilst providing incentives for environmental protection by conserving Zambia’s biodiversity and reducing pollution and wasteful consumption,” Mr Banda said.
And Ms Nkombo called for concerted effort to tackle deforestation and forest degradation in Zambia.
“We are excited about this partnership because it will play a big role in terms of embedding the knowledge, practices, technologies and tools for communities to provide true leadership in terms of transforming from their unsustainable agricultural practices. We think if we do not do anything around the high levels of deforestation and soil degradation, we risk having land conflicts and economic migrants in this country.”
Latest finding shows that agricultural activities to a greater extent contribute to deforestation and forest degradation, therefore there is an urgent need by a wide range of stakeholders to strengthen collaboration, and leverage on each other’s strengths to reverse this trend.
With funding from Sweden, Musika’s market systems development approach under the environmental market focuses on three areas: 1. alternatives to charcoal, 2. carborn markets and forest protection and 3. trees as crops.