Image: Planning Meeting to Scale up the Integrated Conservation, Health and Community Development Model at Mount Elgon National Park, Kenya
Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), Uganda, aims to address existing sustainable development challenges, which undermine the potential for marginalized communities to benefit from the unique economic opportunities of living next to a protected area, by using an integrated approach to conservation, health and community development. With the support of the JSDF award, CTPH aims to:
- Facilitate the formation of Village Health and Conservation Teams (VHCTs) who deliver health and conservation services using an integrated approach, to marginalized communities at the household level, resulting in improved health and conservation outcomes
- Facilitate the creation of group livestock income generating projects whose income will be invested into Village Savings and Loans Associations (VLSAs) providing an additional incentive and reducing volunteer dropouts in VHCTs
- Support efficient and cost effective scaling up of the integrated VHCT and VSLA model to different protected area ecosystems and countries by training Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Institute Congolais pour la Conservation de Nature (ICCN) and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), the government agencies mandated to manage wildlife in the respective countries
- Develop a toolkit for scaling up the program to different countries, ecosystems, lessons learned and best practices which will be disseminated through advocacy platforms with government and NGO decision makers in Uganda, DRC, Kenya, and other countries within East and Central Africa
The project is expected to reach out to to 16,800 households, reaching 84,000 men, women and children in all the three countries. A third of the beneficiaries are youth.