The IRC will put in place high-impact, cost-effective solutions that help people affected by crisis. We’ll also use our learning and experience to shape humanitarian policy and practice in ways that improve the lives of more people worldwide. And in all of our work we will focus on breaking down each of the barriers faced by women and girls.
Environmental integration offers significant economic development potential: green growth provides a number of opportunities to companies through new markets, especially in the fields of:
- Energy management
- Sustainable natural resources management
- Environmental protection
In developing countries, financing this green growth is a major challenge. Agence Française de Développement (AFD) contributes to this challenge in partnership with banks in the South.
Who We Are
Our Vision
Knowledge for better livelihoods.
Our Mission
To strengthen the capacity and policies of African countries and institutions to harness science, technology and innovation for sustainable development.
Our Value Proposition
- To conduct high quality research, policy analysis, capacity strengthening and outreach on applications of science, technology and innovation policies to sustainable development in Africa
- To facilitate and convene evidence based policy dialogue and debate
- To inform development policy and practice
- To put critical issues of science, technology innovation on the Development Agenda
- To provide independent and objective policy advice to African governments and agencies, regional economic communities and institutions, private sector, civil society and community actors and agencies.
A Brief History
The African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) is a pioneering development research think tank on harnessing applications of science, technology and innovation policies for sustainable development in Africa. ACTS is an Intergovernmental organization founded in 1988 to pursue policy oriented research towards strengthening the capacity of African countries and institutions to harness science and technology for sustainable development. ACTS envisions a sustainable economic, social and environmental future for Africa, through science, technology and innovation.
Article 3 of the Charter of ACTS, empowers the Organization to undertake capacity building, conduct research, provide advisory services and disseminate information on the policy aspects of the application of science and technology to sustainable development in Africa. It also requires ACTS to:
- Promote capacity building in the developing countries in the field of policy analysis related to sustainable development.
- Monitor international trends in science and technology, undertake technology assessment and forecasting and analyze the impacts of new technologies for purposes of providing policy options to African and other developing country governments.
- Promote, enhance, inspire, study and conduct the building of the institutional framework requisite for the management, assessment, sustainable utilization and conservation of natural resources.
- Foster the exchange of information and networking between the Centre and other governmental and private institutions and individuals that have similar or related interests at the local, national, regional and international levels, with particular emphasis on policy matters.
- Promote, encourage, inspire and undertake technical cooperation activities between and within nations.
Since its founding, ACTS has been instrumental in enlarging the range of policy choices for sustainable development in Africa. Over the last quarter century, ACTS’ work has influenced patent (i.e. industrial property) legislation and policy (Kenya); environmental impact assessment standards (Eastern and Southern Africa); bio-energy and biofuels policy (Kenya, Eastern Africa, West Africa); agricultural policy, bio-diplomacy, biotechnology and biosafety (Africa-wide); climate change adaptation and mitigation (Africa-wide).
ACTS remains among the leading institutions working on sustainable development in Africa. In 2013, it was rated amongst the top Environment Think Tanks in Africa and the world. ACTS is also a past winner (1991) of the Justinian Rweyemamu Prize from CODESRIA (Africa’s Social Science Research Council) for its work in expanding the knowledge base for Africa’s development
Employment
Please visit our careers page for information about working with the IRC.
Use our online job application system to apply for the positions for which you are interested and qualified.
Internships
To find out what types of internships are available and how to apply visit our careers page.
Tsavo Trust is a field based, Kenyan not-for-profit conservation organization working towards protecting wildlife and its habitat.Tsavo Trust believes in conserving the vast wilderness of the Tsavo Conservation Area, that encompasses Kenya’s biggest Protected Area, is home to Kenya’s largest elephant population, several iconic Tuskers, numerous high value species and one of the few truly wild places with significant wildlife left in Africa.
This national heritage is under threat and faces multiple challenges including wildlife crime, climate change and habitat loss.
Tsavo Trust works on a unique strategy, in partnership with Kenya Wildlife Service and other partners on direct wildlife conservation projects as well as engaging specific local communities in the stewardship of community conservancies, so as to encourage participation in conservation activities that bring many varying benefits to those marginalised people that border the formal Protected Areas.
Zoï Environment Network is a non-profit organization that helps build sustainable societies through informed analysis, visual communication, design and action.
We are an environmental justice NGO, established in 1999. We work with smallholder farmers, other civil society organisations and government to ensure that people have control over their food, agricultural processes and resources, and other natural resources, within a biodiverse, agroecological and sustainable system.
As a country and as a world, we face multiple food, energy and climate change crises. Within this context, and with a clear commitment to securing, developing and protecting smallholder farmers’ rights, Biowatch South Africa challenges industrial agriculture and demonstrates agroecology as a means of ensuring biodiversity while attaining food and seed sovereignty and social justice.
- Biowatch supports and works with smallholder farmers, building on their traditional farming knowledge to stengthen agroecology practice and secure farmers’ rights.
- Biowatch contributes to building platforms for civil society to develop joint understanding of and action towards securing biodiversity, food sovereignty and social justice.
- Biowatch challenges and supports government to implement policy and practices that promote, facilitate, and actively encourage agroecology, and that safeguard people and land.
- Biowatch resists corporate appropriation of natural resources. Much of our own work, and our work with others, is focused on changing the discourse around, and the disconnect between, the destructive industrialised food system and the devastating impact this is having on our planet and the life we share it with.
Our head office is in Durban and we have a rural office in Mtubatuba, northern KwaZulu-Natal.
We are a conservation organization that prides itself as the voice of conservation in the East African region. We do this through evidence based advocacy and engaging different key stakeholders to influence change.
Zeitz Foundation was founded in Germany in 2008 by the business entrepreneur Jochen Zeitz, with the mission to create and support sustainable, ecologically and socially responsible projects and destinations around the world to achieve long-lasting impact and sustainability through the holistic balance of Conservation, Community, Culture and Commerce (the 4Cs) in privately managed areas. An overview of our work in Laikipia can viewed through our YouTube channel here.
Founded by the Zeitz Foundation and formerly known as the Long Run Initiative (LRI), The Long Run pursues the Zeitz Foundation’s mission internationally. By enhancing ecosystems management and building recognition and support for the 4Cs approach to sustainability, the Long Run is a driving force in promoting and encouraging sustainable thinking globally.
We discover emerging social entrepreneurs and invest deeply in the growth of their ideas and leadership. Over 30 years, we’ve built a broad, dynamic ecosystem to support these leaders as they solve the world’s biggest problems.
Protecting waterbird populations has been part of Audubon’s mission even before the official establishment of the National Audubon Society. Outrage over the slaughter of millions of waterbirds, particularly egrets and other waders, for the millinery trade led to the foundation, by Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall, of the Massachusetts Audubon Society in 1896. By 1898, state-level Audubon Societies had been established in Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Illinois, Maine, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Minnesota, Texas, and California. In 1900, Audubon member Frank M. Chapman launched the first Christmas Bird Count – Audubon’s all-volunteer holiday census of early-winter bird populations – as an alternative to the traditional Christmas “Side Hunt,” in which hunters competed to kill as many birds (and mammals) as possible.
In 1901, state-level Audubon groups joined together in a loose national organization, which helped to establish the first National Wildlife Refuge in the U.S. – Pelican Island, in Florida, in 1903 – and facilitated the hiring of wardens to protect waterbird breeding areas in several states. In 1905, the National Audubon Society was founded, with the protection of gulls, terns, egrets, herons, and other waterbirds high on its conservation priority list.
In 1918, President Wilson signed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), which remains to this day one of the strongest laws protecting wild North American birds. Shortly after the passage of the MBTA, Audubon established its first system of waterbird sanctuaries in seven states along the eastern coast of the U.S., and thus initiated the implementation of large-scale, scientifically-based bird conservation efforts.
The Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS Network) is a regional conservation organization with the mission to enhance biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of natural resources in the Albertine Rift region, Africa Great Lakes region and African Mountains through the promotion of collaborative conservation actions for nature and people.
ARCOS’ overall goal is to enhance conservation of critical ecosystems and promote sustainable development in the Albertine Rift region, Africa Great Lakes region and African Mountains through collaborative actions between various partners.
ARCOS is registered in the UK as a Charity and Company Limited by Guarantee, and in Rwanda and Uganda as an international NGO.
Our Liaison Offices in New York, New Delhi, Tokyo and Vienna continue to serve as contact points for ACUNS members traveling to those locations and interested in making connections to the United Nations based organizations in those cities, and to the local scholarly communities there.
The individual lead Liaison Officers at these locations are ACUNS members, either in the academic or practitioner communities, who have volunteered their services to help support members of our global network.
In some cases, the Liaison Offices also organize functions – lectures, seminars, workshops, and conferences – in cooperation with local UN bodies, other international organizations, NGOs, and academic institutions. The Vienna Liaison Office has been especially active in arranging or participating in such programming, supported by an energetic group of young volunteer interns.
CYNESA’s Mission is to help young Catholics in sub-Saharan Africa – their movements and communities, individually and with their colleagues – to respond to the twin challenges of environmental degradation and climate change in an effective, coordinated and evangelical manner, culturally sensitive and spiritually grounded. Its mission is to link young Catholics together with colleagues in mutual encouragement and support.
1. Effective : CYNESA aims to create core teams of young Catholic leaders in each country, appreciating what Catholic youth are doing and making these efforts known, strengthening initiatives already underway, and helping potential programs to get off the ground.
“Today the ecological crisis has assumed such proportions as to be the responsibility of everyone…. Its various aspects demonstrate the need for concerted efforts aimed at establishing uties and obligations that belong to individuals, peoples, states, and the international community.” –Pope John Paul II
2. Coordinated in mutual encouragement and support, working not individualistically but as a body, taking advantage of social media to communicate and give shape to this initiative. As in any network, communications is CYNESA’s nervous system and its blood supply too. With Catholic youth scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, communications are vital capillary and nervous systems which help bind us into one body. CYNESA encourages those involved and links them together step-by-step in an active continental network with its own voice and capacity to act and advocate in coordination.
3. Evangelical: As God’s children, we have a special responsibility toward each other and the rest of Creation. Nature is our sister. As responsible stewards and co-workers with Christ, we are part of Creation, not separate from it. We must demonstrate the meaning of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection in our treatment of Creation. We are to begin the process of properly conserving, developing, and restoring Creation, a process that will be completed by God – the Creator (Father), Redeemer (Son), and Sanctifier (Holy Spirit) of the whole Universe.
“For the mystery of the Incarnation of God is the salvation of the whole of Creation.” ~ St. Ambrose (about 339-397).
4. Culturally sensitive: Globalized culture is obviously imposing itself on Africa with irresistible orce, manifesting itself through consumerism and individualism. African indigenous knowledge on the environment has guided communities over many generations in making environmentally sound choices. This knowledge needs to be integrated in current responses, and must not be allowed to erode in the face of globalization. CYNESA aims to make its contribution by engineering its responses in a way which is sensitive to local culture, faith and spirituality, and which works side by side with other agencies in the field, especially within the Church.
5. Spiritually grounded: An ongoing formation of moral conscience and discernment for making difficult choices according to Gospel and Church teaching, is a main pillar in CYNESA’s approach to the environmental crisis. Our relationship with Christ is fundamental in walking the path of social responsibility and responsibility for creation. Such fidelity is the “guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development.”
In the basalt mountains around Lalibela, stay in local communities. See their ancient world, their churches and their way of life.
Walk through the age-old agrarian landscape of the Ethiopian Highlands following escarpments with birds of prey soaring in the thermals and Gelada baboon scrambling up and down the cliff face. Local shepherd boys keep an eye on their flocks, while their fathers plough the fields, and their sisters collect water in clay pots.
An experience you will never forget!
Please use the links on this site to find out more about these stunning sites and learn how a visit to them could be easily integrated into your holiday in Ethiopia.
See how easy it is to fit a trip to these mountains around your visit to Lalibela, perhaps stopping off en-route from Lalibela to Bahir Dar or Gondar. Let TESFA help you plan one that fits in with your preferences.
TESFA’s Mission Statement (extract)
TESFA seeks to work in partnership with local communities to enable them to generate sustainable improvements in their livelihood through the development of their own tourism related enterprises, while also contributing to the protection of their physical and cultural environments.
What is YEE
Youth and Environment Europe (YEE) is a platform of many European youth organisations that study nature or are active in environmental protection. These member organisations come together from 26 countries. The aim of YEE is to encourage youth to be involved in environmental protection and to provide a platform where these organisations can work together.
YEE gives an opportunity to contact other European organisations, to exchange experiences and ideas and to work together.
All our activities are organised and carried out by young people under 30. YEE organises and encourages all activities that can increase the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of nature and the awareness of environmental problems among young people in Europe.
Our aim is to promote the commitment of youth to the principles of environmental conservation. Therefore, young people’s voluntary actions have to be stimulated for the protection and the rational use of the Earth’s resources. Since environmental problems have no borders, we act together within YEE in order to address these problems in local communities and joint activities. Within international actions, we intend to raise public awareness about environmental problems.
YEE’s mission
YEE aims to unite environmental youth non-profit organisations in Europe in order to enhance international cooperation, increase knowledge about nature, raise awareness of environmental problems and to strengthen participation of youth in environmental decision-making.
Take a look at the YEE promotional materials.
- Supporting the work of member organisations
- Promoting the widest possible exchange of information, ideas and experience among members
- European and local projects (such as training courses, youth exchanges, etc.)
- Environmental educational campaigns
- Publications
- YEE Working Groups
YEE is a member organisation of:
YEE History
Youth and Environment Europe was founded as the European regional branch of the International Youth Federation for Environmental Studies and Conservation (IYF) on the 3rd of August 1983 in Stockholm. The YEE office has been located in three locations. The first YEE office was based in Copenhagen.
IYF established YEE with the cooperation of 15 organisations. Three founding organisations are still members of YEE: Faltbiologerna (Sweden), DJN (Germany), and JNM (Belgium).
In 1986, after the work of a research group on the forest, a new organisation was born from YEE: the European Youth Forest Action (EYFA) that remains active today.
In 1990 the YEE office moved to it’s second location in Utrecht, the Netherlands to locate it more centrally to the member organisations being part of the network at that time.
In 1991, as a further subgroup from EYFA, ASEED started to work as a separate network.
For some years in the 1990’s, a member organisation from Malta hosted a second YEE office in order to deal with the Mediterranean issues closely.
In 1998, the third change of the location of the office occurred. This time the medieval stronghold Toulcuv Dvur in Prague was chosen. Toulcuv Dvur is an ecological center that unites a range of ecological, educational and cultural activities. The area consists of eight hectares of land including wetlands around a little stream. YEE’s office is still located here today.
Currently YEE unites 43 member organisations from 25 countries.
From 2003 YEE started to host volunteers who help as members of the office team in daily work of the organisation.
Today, the office team consists of the General Secretary, Projects Coordinator and 2 volunteers.
We depend on nature for so many things: materials, medicines, clean air and water, a stable climate…the list goes on. Many studies have shown the benefits of nature for people’s mental and physical health, and many people connect with nature on a spiritual level.
The ecosystems that provide us with this priceless service depend on an incredibly diverse range of species that interconnect to form a complex web. When a species is lost, we risk upsetting this fine balance so that the whole system, once rich in variety, becomes much more vulnerable to natural disasters, human disturbance and climate change. In the worst-case scenario, the whole ecosystem can collapse – a tragedy in itself, and a threat to all those who depend on it.
Sadly, our planet’s stunning array of species is under serious threat, from habitat loss, pollution, hunting and myriad other human-made pressures. Biodiversity is being lost at 1,000 times the natural rate.
Whichever way you look at it, humankind has an imperative – whether moral or economic – to protect this biodiversity. All of us, from governments to businesses to individuals, need to work together if we are to save our planet’s rich natural resources.
The consequences of failing to safeguard our forests, seas, wetlands and grasslands and the wealth of species they support – including humans – would be devastating. FFI is under no illusions about the enormity of the challenges facing our natural world. But we have an impressive track record in tackling those challenges.
We have been behind some of the most significant initiatives in the history of conservation. And we continue to play a key role in safeguarding some of the world’s most iconic plants and animals, including Sumatran tigers, mountain gorillas, African and Asian elephants, baobabs and proteas. We also champion less-familiar or neglected species such as the Siamese crocodile, Sunda pangolin, Saint Lucia racer and saiga antelope
The need for a grassroots organization that would galvanize communities across Africa to positively contribute towards sustainable management of natural resources was an idea born out of a discussion by a group of environment and natural resource management practitioners gathered in Arusha Tanzania in 2010. The idea was subsequently shared with other like-minded individuals and culminated in the formation and subsequent registration of Africa Nature Organization as Non-Governmental Organization on the World Wetlands Day 2nd February 2012. Our focus has been to promote sustainable environmental and natural resource management best practices among grassroots communities working closely with civil society organizations, private sector actors and Government.
Women Environmental Programme (WEP) is a non-governmental, non-profit, non-political, non-religious and voluntary organization formed in April 1997 by a group of women in Kaduna State. WEP envisions a world where the lives of women and youth are positively transformed.
Although WEP emerged in response to the environmental pollution by industries in Kaduna State, over the years she has expanded her interventions to conflict transformation, climate change and governance issues.
WEP has United Nations Economic and Social Council of the United Nations(UN) (ECOSOC) special status, Observer Status to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum, and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). With the Observer Status, WEP participate as a major group organization in contributing to the intergovernmental decision-making process in the UN-System. WEP is one of the Organizing Partners (OPs) of Women’s Major Groups and serves as the National Coordinator for Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) in Nigeria. WEP is also the Focal Point for Global Environment Facility (GEF) CSOs in West and Central Africa.
Since 1997 WEP has impacted over 20,000,000 lives positively across the globe through her interventions in Environment, Governance, Climate Change, Women and Youth Empowerment, Peace and Conflict Transformation.
The Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC) provides holistic, country-driven support to accelerate the development, deployment and transfer of locally relevant climate and clean energy technologies. The KCIC provides incubation, capacity building services and financing to Kenyan entrepreneurs and new ventures that are developing innovative solutions in energy, water and agribusiness to address climate change challenges. The Kenya CIC is an initiative supported by the World Bank’s infoDev and is the first in a global network of CICs being launched by infoDev’s Climate Technology Program (CTP). The Kenya CIC is funded by the United Kingdom’s UKaid and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
People in communities across Australia share a vision for a 100% Renewable future: an Australia powered entirely by clean renewable energy.
2042 Newtown NSW
Unga Group Plc entered into a strategic investment partnership with US-Based Seaboard Corporation in 2000 to form Unga Holdings Limited in which Unga Group Plc owns 65% and Seaboard Corporation 35%.
Our Vision “Nutrition for Life” directs the company’s future growth towards a portfolio of diversified value-added products in Eastern Africa and beyond.