Vision 20/20

Developing new partnerships to protect Africa's primary forests

In 2011, GEXSI is focusing much of any energy on advocating and helping to develop new and innovative business models that help to conserve forests.  In the first instance, we have elected to concentrate on helping to protect forests in sub-Saharan Africa.

Overview

Although Sub-Saharan Africa has more than 2 million square kilometres of protected areas, between 1990 and 2005, the region lost an estimated 4.7 million square kilometres of primary forest.  The pressing need for raw products for timber, charcoal production, and the culling of rare and endangered animal species for bush meat, means that the threat of deforestation is ever present, and solutions needs to be found now to address the twin needs of nature conservation and community development.

Approach

In response to this fragile state of affairs, GEXSI has teamed up with the Leadership for Conservation to develop and launch the Vision 20/20 Initiative.  Vision 20/20 creates an unrivalled opportunity to take action to stop the selling-off of Africa‘s most precious natural habitats.  It builds on a successfully implemented template, originally initiated by a prominent European family office, to save 1.5m hectares of untouched rainforest in the Congo basin for future generations.

Vision 20/20 seeks to replicate this successful approach – we are targeting to rescue 20 million hectares by 2020. The project draws on the resources and experience of two professional organisations, who are backed by a global network of environmental organisations, development aid and finance, and with strong links to the world of social impact investing and venture philanthropy.

The multi-faceted nature of Vision 20/20 means that all elements of GEXSI are involved in its development.  The Charity is focused on advocating this unique partnership, and with advocating environmentally and culturally appropriate business models to support the strategic aims of the Pact.

GEXSI Capital Partners is working closely with the LCA leadership to identify all the strategic goals of the partnership, and qualify and introduce appropriate funding and investment vehicles for the projects as they come on line.

Importantly, there is a pipeline of projects in play at this juncture. These target locations range from central West Africa right through to the western Indian Ocean.

Outlook

Vision 20/20 unites the best of venture philanthropy and social business incubation, and combines both sectors within a participatory stakeholder framework to achieve pioneering social and environmental solutions.  We endorse this approach as it seeks to ensure that peoples and places in sub-Saharan Africa co-exist in a mutually beneficial way.

Our focus on forests and our participation in this exciting endeavour underlines GEXSI’s commitment to be part of a solution that addresses the clear and urgent state of African forests.  We are working with local, national and global partners to incubate sustainable business models that place conservation and sustainable enterprise at the heart of this initiative.