The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has appointed, Rwandan, Charles Karangwa, as the Global Head of nature-based Solutions hub.

The IUCN is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

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Before his new responsibilities, he served as regional head of land systems, covering forests, drylands, and nature based solutions, sustainable agriculture at IUCN, Africa region based in Kenya.

He served as IUCN Country Representative for Rwanda from January 2016 and was later appointed Country Representative for Kenya until June, 2022.

Karangwa has led IUCN work on land restoration in Africa as part of the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, Bonn Challenge and AFR100. The latter responds to the African Union mandate to bring 100 million hectares of degraded land into restoration by 2030.

The Bonn Challenge is a global goal to bring 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes into restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. The conservation expert engaged both governments and non-state actors to bring Africa’s commitments to land restoration up to speed since 2016.

In 2020, Karangwa joined the 26th global climate conference known as COP26 high level champion team as the lead for land restoration in Africa. He worked to engage private sector and other non-state actors for an ambitious climate action to race to zero and race to resilience by 2050.

With more than 18 years of experience in the interface between sustainable development, conservation, and sustainable finance in Africa and South East Asia, Karangwa focused his work on climate change, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity conservation, nature-based solutions, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable finance.

Prior to joining IUCN in 2016, he worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Oxfam Novib - a Dutch foundation and the Dutch affiliate of the international Oxfam organization, and Care International.

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Karangwa holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from African Leadership University School of Business (ALUSB) with focus on conservation finance, a MSc. in Poverty Reduction, Policy and Practice with a focus on environmental policies from University of London (SOAS).

"I am honoured to take on this new role and look forward to advancing nature-based solutions for a sustainable future. Nature has the power to provide solutions to many of the challenges we face today, and I am committed to working towards a world where people and nature can thrive together,” said Karangwa.

Karangwa’s role will enhance sustainable financial investments into nature-based solutions, a key factor in phasing out nature-negative flows from both public and private sources.

"To achieve the desired results, we must urgently scale up investment in nature based solutions which is currently underfunded,” he said.

In 2022, the Government of Rwanda signed a host country agreement with IUCN to support national development in matters related to environment and conservation.