Implementing Partners.
The Activity is implemented by:
- Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) as the lead implementer,
- African Wildlife Foundation (AWF): https://www.awf.org/where-we-work/uganda
- Royal United Service Institute (RUSI): https://www.rusi.org/
Government of Uganda Ministries, Departments & Agencies
The Activity is working with the following MDAs to strengthen systems, improve the capacity to protect endangered species and regulate wildlife trade as well as combating illegal wildlife trade.
- Ministry of Tourism Wildlife & Antiquities (MTWA)- https://www.tourism.go.ug/about-us
- Uganda Wildlife Authority, (UWA)- https://ugandawildlife.org
- Uganda Revenue Authority (URA)- https://thetaxman.ura.go.ug/
- The National Wildlife Crime Coordination Task Force (NWCCTF)— formed in May 2018 by the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife, and Antiquities (MTWA),— to promote cooperation and coordination among security agencies, law enforcement bodies, and other relevant government institutions in combating wildlife crime in Uganda.
- Makerere University, School of Law inspiring young legal minds through student moot court competetion.
- Kiryandongo District Local Government (KDLG) engeging communities in our project site at Karuma Wildlife reserve, Murchison Falls Conservation Area.
Private Sector Partners
The Activity is working closely with private sector players such as the leading financial institutions, banks, and mobile money dealers through their umbrella body, the Uganda Bankers Association (UBA), to ensure that money from Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) does not jeopardise the financial sector's contribution to wildlife conservation and tourism.
Financial compliance is increasingly seen as an effective tool to combat wildlife crime. As with other criminal offences, illicit proceeds from wildlife crime are laundered using the regulated financial system and illicit financial transactions must occur to facilitate transnational IWT flows.
In 2021, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommended that countries at risk from wildlife crime should promote public-private collaboration and information exchange to effectively identify and address money laundering linked to IWT. In 2023, the updated National Risk Assessment for Money Laundering and Terrorism Finance for Uganda assessed Environmental and Natural Resource crimes for the first time, giving wildlife crime a medium risk rating, and observing that IWT contributed to both the money laundering and terrorism financing risk for Uganda. In the same year, the CWC partnership and the UBA co-hosted a two-day workshop with UBA members’ compliance officers, following which the UBA agreed to prioritize the advancement of IWT subject matter expertise among their members. Following this event in September 2023, 90% of compliance officers in attendance identified capacity building on IWT as a training priority for them and their teams.
Since then, the Activity has engaged risk and compliance officers in regulated financial entities in Uganda, to raise awareness of the money laundering risk of IWT, improve financial intelligence sharing on IWT-related illicit finance, and advance the understanding and application of IWT risk indicators into customer due diligence and suspicious transaction monitoring and reporting. If wildlife-related money laundering risks are not appropriately mitigated, these illicit financial flows will continue to support ongoing biodiversity loss and ecosystem damage, as well as undermine the integrity of Uganda’s financial sector and hamper national economic growth.
Development Partners
The activity is exploring partnerships and collaboration with other donor agencies such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) to widen the reach and impact to private sector players in timber processing, import and export. This is aimed at creating more awareness about endangered tree species listed under the Convetion on International trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and enlisting compliance and aadherence to the convetion at the lowest level possible.