14 Jul 2021

 Ngamiland Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (NCONGO) has joined organisations from seven countries to implement the African Nature-Based Tourism Collaborative Platform survey.

This would be an effort to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the nature-based tourism enterprise.

In an interview, NCONGO executive director, Mr Siyoka Simasiku, confirmed their participation, saying the survey would assess the degree to which the pandemic had impacted on communities as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the nature-based tourism sector.

The survey, which started June this year, was conducted in eight countries including Botswana. 

Other participating countries are Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique and the survey would run for two years.

Mr Simasiku explained that the survey was funded by Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and it was developed to connect funders to the communities and SMEs in need of funding following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The targeted audience, he said, was community members and SMEs who supported the tourism value chain as suppliers of tourism goods and services as well as their associated enterprises such as lodges, vehicle hire, guiding services and shops, among others.

He said the survey would use a bottom-up approach to gather data on impacts to communities and SMEs from the COVID-19 crisis as well as assess how the affected parties were coping and what kind of assistance they might require. 

Once the data had been collected, Mr Simasiku said it would be uploaded to the platform and be looked into by another organisation in Kenya and eventually made available to donors and other interested supporters with a view to developing concept notes and funding proposals.

“As NCONGO, we will engage a consultant to work with the communities for the development of sound proposals and forward them to the relevant authority for funding,” he said. Ends