Prince William of Wales last visited Africa in 2018 but has a strong connection to 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 in 2010 at a wildlife conservation event in Kenya. The idea for the Earthshot awards came about while he was in Namibia in 2018.

“Africa has always held a special place in my heart, as where I found comfort in my youth, where I proposed to my wife, and most recently as the founding inspiration behind the Earthshot Prize,” William said in a statement before his visit. he said.

Princess Kate of Wales and her children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are not traveling to South Africa. Kate, 42, recently returned to some public duties after completing treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer.

William’s trip comes shortly after his brother Harry, Duke of Sussex, visited South Africa and neighboring Lesotho last month for a youth charity he founded with a member of the Lesotho royal family.

William established the Earthshot Prize through the Royal Foundation in 2020 and launched it in 2021, to encourage new ideas to solve environmental problems. The first three award ceremonies were held in the UK, USA and Singapore. William said he wanted this year’s awards to inspire young people involved in climate action on the African continent, home to around 1.5 billion people who contribute minimally to global warming but are particularly vulnerable to climate shocks.

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

Earthshot awards are given in five categories: protecting and restoring nature, clean air, revitalizing the oceans, building a waste-free world and fixing the climate. This year’s finalists include a company developing solar-powered systems for homes in Kenya, a group rallying indigenous communities to protect forests in Ecuador, and a conservation project in Kazakhstan that saved the critically endangered Saiga antelope from extinction.

The awards ceremony will be held in a temporary, reusable dome built on a field next to a sports stadium in Cape Town. The 470-metre-tall dome has hosted other events in South Africa and will be packaged for reuse after the Earthshot awards, organizers said.

While climate change and threats to the environment are at the center of William’s visit, he will briefly step away from these issues and head to a high school in a poor neighborhood of Cape Town, where he is expected to meet kids at rugby practice.

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

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