Politically, the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) falls along the border of five Southern African sovereign nation-states:  Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.  The process of the creation of this territory has evolved from two initiatives (the Okavango Upper Zambezi International Tourism Initiative and the “Four Corners” Transboundary Natural Resource Management Initiative) into the current Memorandum of Understanding signed by the five countries on December 7th, 2006. 

The Peace Parks Foundation (PPF) has had a major role in the development of the KAZA TFCA as well as many other TFCAs in Southern Africa.  The PPF was founded on February 1st, 1997 with an initial grant of R1.2 million ($260,000) with the goal of facilitating the development of TFCAs across Southern Africa.  The concept for a separate organization devoted to TFCAs was introduced by the Executive Committee of WWF South Africa including Anton Rupert, President of WWF South Africa who kick-started the first TFCA in Southern Africa in Southern Mozambique, Swaziland and Eastern South Africa.

The Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area conclusively demonstrates that the protection of natural resources and biodiversity can be simultaneously used to promote a culture of peace and cooperation between nations. Culture is not stagnant. Institutions can be change agents, and in the case of the KAZA, that ease behavioral shifts and strengthen shared values.

Launching a transfrontier area requires transparency, commitment, mutual respect, and social acceptance by stakeholder groups. No one ethnicity or nationality has a monopoly on such qualities, making this solution one that can adopted in most regions of the world.

Prioritizing regional interests over national objectives is always difficult, especially in developing countries where short-term economic gains can be harder to set aside for objectives that provided long-term stability and well-being for human communities and wild nature. This is no less true in the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area where essential parts of the entire ecosystem are divided up among five nations.

There are three categories of projects that occur in the transfrontier area:  Conservation projects, infrastructure development, and tourism development.  One major conservation project that is being carried out in the TFCA is the development of a network of ecological corridors, a key component of the Nature Needs Half approach, all linking to a central core of the KAZA TFCA.  Another key project for the TFCA in the Zambian portion is the Simalaha Wildlife Recovery Area Project, which established a collaborative effort by two Chiefdoms along the banks of the Kasaya River.  The goal of the project is to ultimately increase the wildlife numbers to what they were in the 1970s, with the hopes of ultimately attracting more tourism and stimulating the local economy.  Another major project is to clear the landmines in the Angolan portion of the TFCA left over from their Civil War.

In addition to conservation projects, there are also a wide variety of projects devoted to developing the infrastructure in the region.  These projects have been funded and implemented by a wide variety of Western governments and NGOs.  The first major injection of capital into the area came from the German government through their development bank, KfW, which amounted to around €430,000.  These were the funds that ultimately allowed for the development of this initiative since 2008.  The German Government has sanctioned another €8 million to be allocated towards further projects.  Other governments that have contributed to the development of the area by allocating funds include those of the Netherlands, the United States and Switzerland.  There have been many NGOs involved in the development of infrastructure as well including the Peace Parks Foundation (PPF), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and Conservation International (CI).