William, Prince of Wales, last visited Africa in 2018, but he maintains close ties with the continent. William traveled to Africa as a child after his mother, Princess Diana, died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. He and his wife, Kate, got engaged at a wildlife reserve in Kenya in 2010. And he said he came up with the idea for the Earthshot Awards while he was in Namibia in 2018.

“Africa has always held a special place in my heart, as it is a place where I found solace as a teenager, where I proposed to my wife and, more recently, as a source of founding inspiration of the Earthshot Prize,” William said in a statement ahead of his visit.

Kate, Princess of Wales, and their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis will not visit South Africa. Kate, 42, only recently returned to some public duties after completing treatment for an undisclosed type of cancer.

William’s trip follows his brother Harry, Duke of Sussex,’s visit to South Africa and neighboring Lesotho last month for a youth charity he set up with a member of the Lesotho royal family .

William established the Earthshot Prize through his Royal Foundation in 2020 to encourage new ideas for solving environmental problems and it launched in 2021. The first three awards ceremonies were held in Britain, in the United States and Singapore. William said he wanted this year’s awards to inspire young people involved in climate action in Africa, a continent of some 1.5 billion people that contributes the least to global warming but is particularly vulnerable to shocks climatic.

The southern African region is currently experiencing its worst drought and hunger crisis in decades, with 27 million people seriously affected, according to the United Nations.

The Earthshot Awards are awarded in five categories: nature protection and restoration, air quality, ocean revitalization, building a world without waste, and climate repair. This year’s finalists include a company in Kenya that develops solar energy systems for homes, a group in Ecuador that brings together indigenous communities to protect forests, and a conservation project in Kazakhstan that is saving the world from extinction. saiga antelope, critically endangered.

The awards ceremony will take place in a temporary, reusable dome erected on a field next to a sports stadium in Cape Town. The 470-foot-long dome has hosted other events in South Africa and will be filled for reuse after the Earthshot awards, organizers said.

While climate change and threats to the environment are the focus of William’s visit, he will briefly step away from these topics to go to a high school in a deprived area of ​​Cape Town, where he is expected to join children during rugby training.

Rugby is one of South Africa’s most popular sports and the country’s national team, the Springboks, are the reigning world champions. William is also a rugby fan.

“I can promise you that you will see the Prince of Wales playing rugby,” a Kensington Palace spokesperson said of the planned school visit.