Nov 23, 2021
#AACJProjectLaunch: African Activists for Climate Justice Launch A Partnership To Address the Climate Emergency
With resounding calls for Climate Justice NOW, African civil society allies, with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, launched a new five-year consortium project which sets out to empower and support those most vulnerable to climate change.
The African Activists for Climate Justice (AACJ) project — a consortium of five Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) — the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), Oxfam Novib, Natural Justice, African Youth Commission and the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) — aims to organize and mobilize women, youth and indigenous communities to advance their solutions to the climate crisis, to enjoy their rights to a healthy environment and self-determination. The AACJ project will be implemented in eight African countries — Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Mozambique, and South Africa.
Representatives from the African Youth Commission were pleased to have a dedicated space for young people to share their specific struggles and solutions related to the climate crisis. “We are excited that AACJ will empower young people across the continent with knowledge, skills and resources to meaningfully contribute to the radical changes needed to advance climate justice,” said Kawsu Sillah, Senior Technical Advisor for AYC.
The AACJ Consortium partners believe that all people have the right to live a decent and dignified life in a healthy environment. For people living on the African continent, this right is increasingly compromised by climate change. The impacts are global in scope and unprecedented in scale: from shifting weather patterns that threaten food production and rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, to pollution in cities which increases health risks, with young people, indigenous and women bearing the brunt.
Historically, most greenhouse gas emissions have come from developed countries. Yet, the impacts of climate change have been felt most by low-income countries. Climate change is increasingly devastating the African continent, contributing to food insecurity, land degradation, population displacement and stress on water resources. Many African citizens do not yet, however, connect the multiple challenges they face to the global causes of climate change.
To contribute to an African movement for Climate Justice, the AACJ has assembled partners and networks with broad constituencies and a diversity of tools and strategies to align and strengthen existing movements, organizations and initiatives advancing the environmental rights of women, youth, and local communities. Each consortium partner has a presence and influence across Africa, with relevant and complementary expertise and experience.
The AACJ project is an inclusive pan-African movement to amplify the voices of those calling for climate justice, seeking to build the capacities of groups most affected by climate change to drive the climate justice movement, and seeks to advance equity, dignity, and justice for the most vulnerable and repressed societies in Africa.
