CORB Fund Aims to Mobilise Resources for Long Term Sustainability

The recently established Cubango-Okavango River Basin Fund (CORB Fund) is a fully independent hybrid fund that aims to enhance livelihoods, improve ecosystem resilience and provide equitable benefits to the riparian states of Angola, Botswana and Namibia, in the shared river basin. Registered on 11 December 2019, in Gaborone Botswana, the Fund is designed to be a sustainable, accountable, independent and transparent financing mechanism to contribute towards the riparian states’ ability to directly tackle social, economic, and ecological threats facing the CORB ecosystem.  Being one of the world’s last pristine river basins, the CORB home to some of African’s largest wildlife populations. The Basin is also a  source of livelihood for communities across the three countries who rely on it for their daily survival and  a population expected to grow to between 1.15 million and 1.68 million by 2020.

The Fund will raise long-term revenue streams that will support sustainable resources use as well as livelihoods improvement activities in the CORB, thereby ensuring ecosystem resilience and ecosystems services delivery to future generations. Some of the anticipated resilience development interventions that the Fund may support include commercial conservation agriculture and sustainable food security, such as sustainable bee-keeping, sustainable fisheries, sustainable energy, rural water supply and demand management; communal sanitation infrastructure and community climate adaptation projects.  For biodiversity and ecosystems conservation projects the focus is on protection of critical wetlands and wildlife, land and habitat management, including erosion control. A particular focus will be placed on training, capacity building, and investment opportunities to support skills development, extension, and increase experience in small and medium-scale enterprise (SMEs) development or organisational management. The CORB Fund will also improve transboundary collaboration and management as it assists member states to jointly advance and manage investments in the Basin.

The CORB Fund Advisory Group has so far made progress towards establishing the core governance structure which will comprise of five Members, seven Board Directors and one Executive Officer. The Board of Directors will oversee and guide the Fund’s functionality as an independent legal entity, and ensure that  with effective planning, decision-making, and oversight result in an efficient and productive implementation process, including the raising of start-up finances, hiring of the management team, provision of necessary operational infrastructure, coordination with national and international partners and engagement with stakeholders in the CORB.  As part of the capacity building and awareness creation of the CORB Fund, two  sessions of online orientation workshop for Directors and Members of the CORB Fund were held. The key partners supporting OKACOM in this include The Nature Conservancy (TNC), USAID Resilient Waters Program, the Climate Resilient Infrastructure Development Facility (CRIDF) and Basin based NGOs.