The African Elephant Fund

The African Elephant Fund is a collaboration venture between thirty-eight African elephant range States, donor States, UNEP, the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Convention of the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS), who are working together to curtail the growing threats to elephant populations. 

The African Elephant Action Plan (AEAP) which outlines the actions that must be taken to effectively conserve elephants in Africa across their range, was adopted in March 2010 at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES in Doha, Qatar. The document was developed in response to a Decision of the CITES Parties to develop such a plan and as well as the African Elephant Fund to assist with its implementation. The AEAP was updated and endorsed in 2023 to keep abreast with the challenges and dynamics of conserving and managing elephants, and to ensure it remains an adaptive tool that will enable range States to have a comprehensive source from which to guide actions to address the multitude of threats elephants face and to ensure the species’ conservation across its range. 

There are only about 415,000 elephants roaming the continent of Africa presently (IUCN, 2016) compared to 3 to 5 million that roamed the vast expanses at the beginning of the 20th century. It's a frightening drop of 90 percent!

Since its inception in 2010, the African Elephant Fund has worked to achieve its objectives which include; reducing human-elephant conflict, maintaining elephant habitats and restoring connectivity, reducing illegal killing of elephants and illegal trade of elephant products, increasing awareness on elephant conservation  and management of key stakeholders that include policy makers and  local communities among other interest groups, strengthening cooperation and understanding  among range states, improving local communities cooperation and collaboration on African elephant conservation and ensuring that the African Elephant Action Plan is effectively implemented.

Some of the key highlights of the African Elephant Fund achievements include:

• Enhancing the capacity of range States to enact and enforce stronger wildlife laws; 
• Training and equipping of law  enforcement personnel in several range States to conduct effective and efficient anti-poaching missions and in the identification, collecting and handling of wildlife products; 
• Conducting aerial census survey of elephants; 
• Building the capacity of local communities to implement appropriate elephant pushback techniques to minimize incidences of  crop raiding, and to provide alternative income-generating sources;  
• Erection of solar-powered electric fences to reduce human-elephant conflict and protection of elephants; 
• Building of beehive fences in many Range States which has improved the welfare of communities through increased household income from honey and better food safety; 
• Provision of emergency funding to 18 projects implemented across Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic to support range States in addressing threats to elephants posed by the pandemic; 
• Recognition by Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) member states of the significance of adoption of the African Elephant Action Plan. 

Get more information about:

For more information about the African Elephant Fund, please visit our website on www.africanelephantfund.org or contact, Tita Korvenoja: tita.korvenoja[at]un.org or Joyce Riungu: joyce.riungu[at]un.org.