A Unified Voice for Africa's Guardians: Looking Ahead to the AICA 2026 General Assembly
Africa’s biodiversity is a global treasure, and the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) who have stewarded these lands for generations are its most vital guardians. As Alpha Mambu of Friends of the Earth Sierra Leone recently noted, our continent “should from now be at the pinnacle of decisions in conservation”.
It is with this urgency and vision that the Alliance for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities for Conservation in Africa (AICA) is actively preparing for a monumental milestone: our upcoming 2026 Members General Assembly.
The Journey to 2026
AICA was established to serve as a Pan-Africa umbrella body, aiming to galvanize the collective voice of Africa’s IPLCs to address shared conservation issues. Drawing our mandate from the Kigali IPLC Declaration and the Kigali Call to Action—born just one year after the 2022 Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) in Rwanda—we have been working tirelessly to amplify the complexities of conservation on the continent.
Our growth has been rapid and impactful. Through grassroots mobilization, our membership has expanded to 100 organizations across the continent. We have signed a Collaboration Framework Agreement with the IUCN to enhance equitable governance , shaped strategies at the IUCN-Africa Conservation Forum in Nairobi , and championed Africa’s Inclusive Conservation Day at the World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi.
However, in a global landscape facing accelerating climate change, land pressures, and biodiversity loss, African IPLCs are engaging with an expanding array of complex policies, such as the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30×30 target and the upcoming 2026 International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. To ensure our voices translate into actionable change rather than mere resolutions, AICA needs a concrete, democratically endorsed strategy.
An Integrated Programme for the Future
Scheduled for the last week of April 2026 , the upcoming General Assembly is not just a meeting; it is an integrated programme deliberately designed to link intergenerational capacity-building, democratic governance, and strategic advocacy.
The event will unfold across three core activities:
We will kick off with a 2-day Youth Advocacy Training and Mentorship programme. We are bringing together 20 selected youth leaders from across AICA’s five regions, equipping them with foundational knowledge on global policy mechanisms (like the UNFCCC and CBD), power dynamics, and representation ethics.
The 3-day Members General Assembly will serve as the supreme decision-making body of the Alliance. Gathering approximately 100 registered members, interim leadership, and youth, this assembly will focus on approving crucial governance instruments, electing AICA’s leadership, and green-lighting our three-year programme of work.
Finally, a 3-day Advocacy and Strategy Workshop will translate the Assembly’s newly set mandate into a coherent strategy. Newly elected leadership, trained youth leaders, and technical experts will collaborate to map priority regional policies and define AICA’s distinct comparative advantage as a continental facilitator.
Moving Forward Together
By integrating youth capacity building with democratic governance, this Assembly will ensure that our future advocacy planning is led by leadership with a clear, democratically endorsed mandate. We are building a cohesive African force capable of addressing human rights and conservation issues with a solid, unified voice.