Africa Initiative

Leader: Virginia C. Robbins

In 2016, ACOEL executed a Memorandum of Understanding with the African Wildlife Foundation to undertake wildlife and resource conservation work in Eastern, Central and Southern sub-Saharan Africa. In 2018, we were active in assisting the East African Wildlife Prosecutors’ Coalition in drafting a constitution and bylaws that would enable it to improve the effectiveness of its anti-poaching efforts in Eastern and Southern Africa. In May 2019 calls, AWF reported that it has a new Chief Executive Officer who is changing the direction of the Foundation. Nonetheless, AWF affirmed again that ACOEL is an important resource and partner. We reaffirmed in turn that ACOEL continues its readiness to work with AWF in important anti-poaching and other resource preservation projects – and that the ACOEL Foundation stands ready as a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization in the USA to join AWF in applying for appropriate grants. Our current mission is to advise AWF on techniques used by U.S. agencies to detect and combat/avoid wildlife cybercrime. The project involves training East African wildlife prosecutors about the American experience in tackling cybercrime and best practices to be adopted.

We will advise the full College of future pro bono opportunities for individual Fellows as they occur.