The African College for 

Community-Based Natural Resource Management

he College is located on the East bank of the Luangwa River in Lupande Game Management Area, directly opposite of South Luangwa National Park.  In terms of proximity, the College is directly linked to a number of game management areas (GMAs) where resident communities receive training and where CBNRM results are easily observed and studied.   In addition, nearby Malama village offers the College easy access to CBNRM demonstration sites for visiting students.  For communities living in other Provinces, Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) is helping establish a network of regional CBNRM offices linked to the College to provide more direct access to the different skills offered by the College. This extension service is an important component of ADMASE services the College provides and enables many of the experiences and best practices to be transported into other parts of the country. In 1999 the College became an accredited training institute in Zambia under its Ministry of Education for promoting CBNRM skills development throughout Zambia.

he College has a technical staff of 10, all with diplomas from different institutions.  Of these, four are university trained and one has a post-graduate degree.  Their responsibilities include training community members in CBNRM and livelihood improvement skills, monitoring and analyzing CBNRM results, developing training modules in both local language and English, building local capacity to resolve conflicts and negotiate joint-ventures with the private sector, and promoting market linkages to help diversify revenue opportunities. 

he College offers the newly established Community Resource Boards (CRBs) their own training institute to help cultivate responsible leadership for improving resource management and facilitating community benefits from wildlife revenues as required under the Wildlife Act of Zambia. CRB members are democratically elected community leaders to provide CBNRM leadership for the local residents living in their respective GMAs.  Over time and depending on their level of efficacy, CRBs will become increasing independent wildlife authorities for the wildlife resources in their designated areas.  

unding for the College comes largely from third-party donor support  though a significant level of support is sustained by the Zambian Government. While efforts are underway to help make the College self-supporting by charging communities for training services, there remains a critical dependency on funds from these third-party sources.

Advancements and Contributions

The College maintains an active monitoring and research program to assess community progress in applying newly taught skills.   To undertake this analysis, the College  measures the relationship between CBNRM-taught skills and  three key variables: natural resource production, household livelihood security, and community perceptions toward CBNRM.  Results help the College to modify course curriculum and teaching methodologies.  In this way the College maintains close contact with communities for follow-up training and appraisal.  These efforts are contributing to more democratic institutional structures to better govern and administer the CRBs.  As a result, household groups seeking  improved livelihoods now have increased links to their elected leaders to support  new  market opportunities and  increased investments in food security.    

It does this by providing skills that enable community leaders to organize and involve local residents in identifying priorities and finding solutions to their household needs.  This process helps to facilitate increased community capacity  to self-regulate and control land use practices because livelihood solutions often depend on improving resource management. Through this process the College has helped communities overcome serious problems of food shortages and other basic needs like medicine, education and employment by investing their wildlife revenues wisely and through honest consultation with community members.

Training by the College emphasizes a range of skills that comprise not only the technical needs of CBNRM in resource management, community development, financial management, leadership and planning, but also helps local leaders acquire skills to evaluate their efforts and use information to evaluate management targets and development goals.  These efforts are building confidence within the community to become more self-reliant for solving problems and developing their own solutions to managing and protecting natural resources.  

Another important advancement by the College is the introduction of basic livelihood skills in rural communities living in GMAs.  In the past, Government efforts to provide such services have proven too expensive to sustain, and over time, many rural communities have declined into the perils of abject poverty, resulting in increased rates of environmental degradation. The approach used by the College is to facilitate the formation of 'livelihood' groups to adopt new skills that will improve food security or personal income.  Skills are taught by outreach trainers, who also develop community members themselves as local trainers to continue skills training in the community. As these groups become better organized and skilled, many begin earning income by producing marketable commodities, such as agricultural, forestry or tourism products.  A key component of this approach is to ensure participants realize that by increasing household livelihood security, wildlife production can improve to sustain significant increases in revenues.  

Over the past 10 years, these achievements have led to the following contributions to CBNRM in Zambia:

Over 700 students per year matriculate at the College.

Click here to see the courses offered at the college...

 College Extension Activities

As part of ZAWA's efforts to extend College services elsewhere in the country and to support ZAWA's CBNRM Directorate staff operating throughout Zambia's wildlife estate, the College is helping support the establishment of Regional Support Offices.   These offices are able to provide more direct training and support to communities too distant for the College to assist on a regular basis.  Currently, there are regional support offices in  Southern and North-Western Provinces located in towns adjacent to GMAs surrounding the Kafue National Park.

Another important component of the College's extension services is the Yakobe Adult Learning Center, located midways up the Luangwa Valley in Lumimba GMA, approximately 120 km north of the College.  Its principal role is to provide a more accessible location for communities living in the Luangwa  Valley to learn practical livelihood skills in food security and revenue generation.  The Center is based at Yakobe Village where instructor houses and dormitory facilities are established.  The site was chosen at Yakobe Village because many of the important CBNRM principles and best practices are found there and can be easily accessed by community members from surrounding GMAs.  Some of the courses taught at the Center with corresponding demonstration sites are bee-keeping, yeanga press for making cooking oil, electric fencing to protect crops and gardens, vegetable gardening, small-scale irrigation for dry season farming, fruit orchards, improved poultry farming, and conservation farming.  The College hopes to expand the Adult Learning Center through local schools in GMAs to promote adult literacy as a way of facilitating the use and understanding of  livelihood skills.

    Support Services

1)  Post-graduate Research.  The college promotes and invites post-graduate research by students from within Zambia as well as abroad by assisting with research design and logistics.  The College selects students for such support on the basis of how a student's research interests correspond to those of the College and the level of support required by the student.

2)  Workshops and Seminars.  The College provides facilities for workshops or seminars to parties wishing to use the College for this purpose.  Lodging and dining is ideal for groups up to about 25, who will enjoy the spacious surroundings of the College.  The College is capable of providing well prepared meals, office equipment for secretarial needs, and reliable transport to and from Mfuwe airport.

3) Lodging facilities. Visits to the College may wish to enjoy a low-cost way of experiencing the Luangwa Valley by staying at the College guest house and enjoying the beautiful surroundings with a view overlooking the Luangwa River..  Meals are self-catered but staff cooks and room attendants will make visitors feel warmly welcomed.  Nightly rates are $10 per night.

General queries:  Course schedules are available through the Administrator's Office, P.O. Box 82, Mfuwe, Zambia  Africa or e-mail: admade@compuserve.com.  All queries and comments should be sent to this address.  The College seeks external funding to reduce tuition costs for communities lacking the financial means to support their skills to successfully launch their CBNRM activities.  Where possible, tuition costs are waived.