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Technical Support Unit for the AEWA African initiative

Technical Support Unit for the AEWA African initiative

Objectives

The Technical Support Unit (TSU) assists the implementation of the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA)’s Action Plan for Africa, mainly through direct technical support for the contracting parties.

AEWA is an intergovernmental treaty drawn up under the auspices of the Convention on Migratory Species, and managed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It encourages international cooperation between the contracting parties for better conservation and management of 255 migratory waterbird species and their habitats in Africa and Eurasia.

 

Actions and methodology

The TSU acts by developing and facilitating three networks:

The TSU’s actions include fund seeking, technical collaboration in the field with African partners in the framework of waterbird monitoring operations, and facilitating training workshops:

See the video presentation of the project [2]

Results

The TSU has designed and developed training tools and modules for improving waterbird identification and counting skills in Africa, and has contributed to the enhancement of national and international waterbird monitoring databases.

The TSU has also developed:

The result of a close collaboration since 2012 between the Wildlife Conservation General Administration (WCGA), the High Commission for the Environment and Natural Resources (HCENR), AAO/Birdlife Tunisia [4], the Sudanese Wildlife Society [5], the University of Sennar, the Wildlife Research Center of Sudan [6], the French Office of Biodiversity [7] and the Tour du Valat [8], the Khor Abu Habil Inner Delta has been recognized as a wetland of international importance, designated by Sudan under the Ramsar Convention and officially designated as a Ramsar site on 19 July 2022. These first steps for the designation of the Khor Abu Habil Inner Delta were captured in the field by Alizée Chiappini and Camille Barbé in December 2020 (see the film [9]).

Team

Partners

Technical partners

Financial partners

Publications and Multimedia