📋 Tender Overview
Project ID: P174097
Region: Africa
Total Project Cost: Us$ 15.00 million
The project is focused on addressing major challenges for financing conservation and proposes an innovative financing model to unlock and direct private finance for the conservation of the black rhino in South Africa. The Project aims to catalyze the world’s first Wildlife Conservation Bond (WCB) that links the coupon payments of an institutional SDG-related bond issuance to conservation performance. This innovative transaction enables private/institutional bond investors to participate in a market which has historically been focused on donors and philanthropic investors that look beyond typical financial rates of return to guide investment decisions. Through the proposed model, financing from the coupon payments of the WCB will be directed to two priority sites for rhino conservation: Addo Elephant National Parkand Great Fish River Nature Reserve(see Annex 1 for project area map).Project investments will be used to enhance management of these protected areas to secure and increase black rhino populations, and increase benefits realized by local communities. The project builds on existing conservation efforts in the two priority sites, as well as a two-year product development phase37that included an extensive assessment and stakeholder engagement. The WCB product development phase was done under the US $4.5 million Rhino Impact Investment Project (RIIP) funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), The Royal Foundation, UK Aid and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). This work was implemented under the leadership of ZSL with technical support from Conservation Alpha, Conservation Capital, Credit Suisse, DLA Piper and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission’s African Rhino Specialist Group (AfRSG). The product development phase allowed the identification of important conservation sites that have the capacity to deliver impact under the WCB, which include the Addo Elephant National Park (AENP) and the Great Fish River Nature Reserve(GFRNR); the two sites selected for the proposed project. As part of the preparation of the WCB project, the WCB concept and its financing structure was developed. The WCB concept preparation efforts build on prior GEF projects at AENP and other donor funded projects at GFRNR38.
