Northern Botswana Human Wildlife Coexistence Project

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The project's development objective (PDO) of the Northern Botswana Human Wildlife Coexistence Project in the Botswana is: (i) to mitigate human-wildlife conflict through proactive prevention interventions in selected rural communities in Northern Botswana; and (ii) to offer local people in the project areas employment choices in wildlife-based tourism to benefit directly from the presence of wildlife. There are three components to the project. The first component of the project is strengthened extension service delivery for human-wildlife coexistence interventions. This component will strengthen Departments of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP's) extension service delivery for human-wildlife coexistence strategies such as proactive wildlife conflict interventions. It will address administrative and operational capacity requirements of DWNP at district level for planning, decision making, implementation and monitoring of Human- Wildlife-Conflict (HWC) management in the three project areas. The second component of the project is strengthened capacity of rural target population to implement human-wildlife-coexistence strategies. The component concerns to strengthen the capacity of the rural target populations in undertaking proactive prevention measures to mitigate HWC impacts and to improve skills of selected local community members to become more competitive for Botswana's tourism industry. Component two, consequently, addresses simultaneously reducing vulnerability and increasing rural livelihood and income opportunities. HWC interventions will focus on tested conflict mitigation based on elephant deterrents which can easily be demonstrated and supported, while piloting additional approaches to mitigate livestock-predator conflict. The third component of the project is project management support. This component concerns to strengthen DWNP's capacity to efficiently administer project funds, as well as coordinate and implement project activities. It also aims to improve the project's external communications, including the establishment of a permanent information dissemination forum to involve all relevant stakeholders and development partners.