The Sanganeb Marine National Park and Dungonab Bay – Mukkawar Island Marine National Park will be benefiting from a US$23.6m project to improve protection of three national parks in Sudan. US$4.6m of the financing has been allocated from the Global Environmental Facility and the remainder will be coming from the UN and national contributions, and partners.

The five-year project  will seek to strengthen the national protected area (PA) system and promote integrated ecosystem management in adjacent areas to reduce threats to biodiversity, mitigate land degradation, sustain ecosystem services, and improve people’s livelihoods.  More specifically the project will work along three components – Component 1: An enabling environment is to be established at the national level for expanded PA management; Component 2: Improve management effectiveness at the selected terrestrial and marine PAs; Component 3: Integrated Natural Resource Management in multi-use landscapes in and around the targeted PAs. Finally, to ensure adaptive management and equity: Component 4: Knowledge Management, Gender Mainstreaming, and M&E.

In the Red Sea state Dungonab Bay and Mukkawar Island Marine National Park the project will partnering with several government institutions (including the management authority – the Wildlife Conservation General Administration) and one national organization, the Sudanese Development Initiative (SUDIA). SUDIA role will be focused on community level engagement and the facilitation of several activities that will support the diversification and improvement of livelihoods of the two communities living in the PA.

The announcement of the launch of the project was made on 30 May 2021 (ahead of the World Environment Day) by the Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources (HCENR), the Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning, and the United Nations Development Programme in Sudan (Implementing Agency).