Our Strategic Outlook for UNEA-7 and Africa’s Green Horizon
Aligning Climate Ambition with Development Priorities
As preparations intensify for the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-7), African partners across government, civil society, and research institutions are aligning around a shared goal: to position the continent as a constructive and forward-looking actor in shaping global environmental policy. UNEA-7 presents an important moment for Africa to reaffirm its leadership in advancing just, inclusive, and innovative solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises—solutions that are both globally relevant and locally grounded.
A key issue gaining prominence ahead of the Assembly is the intersection between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Africa’s energy transition. The rapid growth of digital infrastructure across the continent has increased demand for reliable power, prompting renewed interest in large hydropower projects. Yet, as energy experts and community organizations point out, future investments must carefully balance technology-driven ambitions with ecological and social sustainability. The aim should be to shift the conversation toward how AI can support smarter, low-impact energy systems, including decentralized renewables and climate-responsive planning.
Similarly, initiatives such as the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) and the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP) are drawing renewed focus as platforms that exemplify regional collaboration and innovation. Stakeholders are highlighting opportunities to enhance coordination, scale practical technologies, and integrate youth and women into implementation processes. Here, our call is for a Just Climate Finance—ensuring that financial flows align with national priorities, gender equity, and local resilience. African negotiators and development partners are emphasizing the need for climate investments that strengthen livelihoods, reinforce community-led adaptation, and build long-term institutional capacity. UNEA 7 is the best space to emphasize moving from volume of funding to quality of outcomes, with growing attention to transparency, governance, and the empowerment of local actors in decision-making processes.
Over the past months, deliberations show that Africa’s approach to global policy is defined by constructive engagement and partnership. As stakeholders, we are seeking to advocate for fairer global frameworks as well as to offer concrete pathways toward shared prosperity and environmental stewardship. Through dialogue, innovation, and collective vision, African actors are demonstrating that sustainable development can be both equitable and forward-looking—anchored in collaboration, guided by evidence, and powered by the conviction that a just transition is within reach.
Climate Debt and Reparations in Africa
A Feminist Narrative of Collective Action
By: Priscilla Sedinam Akoto,
FIDEP Foundation
I come from a continent that contributes less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet we lose between USD 7 and 15 billion every year to the impacts of climate change; losses that could climb to USD 50 billion by 2030 if the world does not change course (UNECA, 2022; AfDB, 2021). This is the imbalance that defines the climate debt conversation: Africa did not create this crisis, yet our people pay the highest price. In the Sahel, women tilling parched soils wrestle with unending droughts; in southern Africa, fisherfolk and youth rebuild again and again after devastating floods. They carry the heaviest weight while being shut out of the very financial systems designed to respond to crisis.
When I joined the four-day convening on the Southern Africa Convening on Climate Debt and Reparations, through the support of WoMin Africa and ACJC, I witnessed how powerful it is when testimonies meet evidence, and when science is linked directly to justice. Civil society and grassroots leaders sat together in one room, confronting truths too often ignored. For me, this gathering was not only a dialogue; it was a space where reparations were redefined, not as charity, but as the repair of historic injustice and a pathway toward a fairer future.
This four-day convening affirms that climate reparations are both a moral and an economic necessity. The conversations captured in this report affirm that climate debt is not an abstract idea but a moral, political, and economic obligation owed to African peoples whose futures are being compromised by a crisis they did not create. The call for reparations is a call for justice, one that demands debt cancellation, direct financial transfers, and institutional reforms that empower communities rather than reinforce dependency.
You may download my full account of the four-day Southern Africa Convening on Climate Debt and Reparations Here
The Dam and the Future: Tracking Rights, Risks, and Resilience at Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam, Ghana
The Equity Lens Series: Upcoming Field Visit
In October–November 2025, the FIDEP Foundation will embark on a critical field visit to the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam in Ghana’s Upper East Region, continuing our commitment to interrogating large-scale infrastructure projects through the Equity Lens Series. This visit is part of our broader effort to ensure that development initiatives—whether framed under climate resilience, trade facilitation, or energy transition—are assessed not only for their economic promise but also for their social justice, ecological sustainability, and human rights implications.
The Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam has long been presented as a transformative project, designed to provide irrigation, flood control, and renewable power. Yet, as with many mega-projects across Africa, it raises important questions: How will local communities experience its impacts on land, livelihoods, and cultural heritage? What trade-offs exist between hydropower development, agricultural expansion, and ecosystem integrity? And how can such projects align with Africa’s commitments under the Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals?
During this field visit, our team will engage with affected communities, local authorities, civil society organizations, and technical experts to document grassroots perspectives. Insights will be synthesized into an upcoming Equity Lens Report that situates the Pwalugu project within the wider debates on just energy transitions, intergenerational equity, and community rights in Africa’s development corridors.
By placing the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam under the Equity Lens, FIDEP reaffirms its role as a convenor of grounded, policy-relevant knowledge—ensuring that large-scale investments are not just measured by their megawatts or hectares irrigated, but by their contribution to justice, resilience, and sustainable futures for all.
Women at the Frontlines of Agroecological Transition: Launch of the Nabdam Women’s Composting Hub
On 27 August 2025, the FIDEP Foundation, under the CIRAWA Project, will convene an engagement with women farmers in the Nabdam District of Ghana that redefines how climate resilience is built from the ground up. This is not a meeting in the conventional sense; it is a laboratory of practice, where women draw from their lived realities to shape knowledge systems around composting, soil rehabilitation, and agroecological production.
The session represents an experiment in placing women not as beneficiaries but as agents of systemic change. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, women account for almost 60% of agricultural labour, yet they continue to face structural exclusion from decision-making processes that determine access to land, credit, and technology (FAO, 2023). If women are disproportionately affected by soil degradation, erratic rainfall, and food insecurity, how can climate policy remain credible without embedding their agency at the center? What are the risks of continuing to design food system innovations without women’s leadership shaping both the content and the governance of solutions?
The highlight of the engagement will be the launch of the Nabdam Women’s Composting Hub, a pioneering initiative designed as a platform for co-created agro-valorization practices. The Hub will provide technical training on composting and soil fertility management while also serving as an incubator for local innovations that can generate income, reduce dependency on chemical inputs, and restore degraded land. The initiative builds on evidence that decentralized composting systems can increase soil organic matter by 30% over three years, translating into improved yields and enhanced resilience to climate shocks (UNEP, 2022). At the same time, it will explore how such ecological benefits can be tied to financial instruments and climate investment frameworks that reward smallholder women for ecosystem restoration.
This engagement also forces us to ask difficult governance questions. How should district assemblies and national ministries reform extension services to support such women-led agroecological hubs? Can international climate finance, currently skewed toward large-scale mitigation projects, be redirected to micro-level interventions with measurable biodiversity and livelihood co-benefits? At the global level, this activity signals that gender-responsive agroecology is not an isolated experiment but a replicable model for other vulnerable regions. It aligns with the ambitions of the EU Green Deal, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and the UNFCCC Gender Action Plan, which call for inclusive governance frameworks where women’s ecological knowledge is integrated into formal decision-making. For development banks and UN agencies, the Nabdam Hub provides a concrete entry point: a small-scale initiative that demonstrates both technical feasibility and social legitimacy. Scaling such hubs across districts could provide measurable outcomes in soil carbon sequestration, food security, and rural income diversification—while addressing the structural inequities that continue to undermine global climate goals.
The women of Nabdam are not waiting for top-down solutions. Their urgency reflects both lived vulnerability and an untapped reservoir of innovation. For policymakers, donors, and technical partners, this is more than a local engagement. It is a clear signal that women’s leadership in agroecology is not optional; it is the condition for sustainable transitions.
Reframing Africa’s Climate Governance at AMCEN: Strategic Priorities for AMCEN 2025
By the FIDEP Foundation
For publication and engagement with AMCEN delegates, UN agencies, development banks, and African governments
The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report confirms what communities across the continent already feel: temperatures rising faster than the global average, food systems unraveling under climate pressure, and public infrastructure strained to breaking point. Yet, the continent’s climate vulnerability is not matched by a proportional voice in global decision-making. Nor is it reflected in current financial flows, technology deployment, or governance architecture. As AMCEN convenes at a moment of global transition, it must do more than review technical frameworks. It must reassert Africa’s place in shaping the future of planetary stewardship through decisions grounded in equity, grounded in rights, and guided by science.
Democratize Energy Transitions through Local Ownership and Agroecological Integration
Africa has energy potential that could serve both local development and global climate goals. But the transition must not repeat the top-down logics of the fossil fuel era. Across the continent, millions still lack reliable access to power, while capital-intensive, export-oriented energy projects dominate donor pipelines. IRENA estimates that Africa could generate 4.5 million renewable energy jobs by 2030, yet current policy incentives rarely support decentralized systems or locally owned infrastructure. Community energy cooperatives, public mini-grid schemes, and solar-agriculture systems such as those supported in Senegal, Uganda, and Ghana, demonstrate that alternatives exist. AMCEN should urge governments to develop national frameworks that prioritize agroecological linkages and scale community-resilience financing mechanisms.
Invest In Agrovoltaics As Part Of An Agroecological Transition Strategy
As debates around untested climate interventions such as solar radiation modification (SRM) gain traction in academic and policy circles, the African position must remain clear: investment should prioritize solutions that are field-proven, socially just, and ecologically coherent. Unlike geoengineering, which carries high uncertainty and potential regional risks, agrovoltaics builds on Africa’s agricultural strengths while contributing to energy sovereignty.
Across Africa, proven solutions such as agroecology and decentralized renewable energy are already delivering measurable gains in food security, land restoration, and rural livelihoods. The FAO and IPES-Food report that agroecological practices have increased yields by 20–60% in smallholder systems while strengthening climate resilience. At the same time, integrated energy models like agrovoltaics, where solar panels are deployed alongside crops, are showing strong potential to improve land-use efficiency, reduce water stress, and support community-based electrification. Countries like Kenya and Morocco have begun piloting agrovoltaic systems with promising results, demonstrating that practical, locally rooted innovations can address complex energy-agriculture trade-offs. With support from national governments, development partners, and multilateral funds, agrovoltaics can become a pillar of a broader agroecological transition linking climate adaptation, energy access, and food systems transformation in a way that strengthens local agency rather than external dependence.
Water Scarcity is no Longer Theoretical
The World Resources Institute projects that by 2050, over 800 million Africans will face high levels of water stress. Climate change, dam construction, river diversion, and mining all compound these risks. Yet legal frameworks to govern transboundary water systems remain weak, fragmented, or outdated. Where is the mechanism to hold upstream actors accountable to downstream realities?
AMCEN must call for enforceable regional compacts on river basins, rooted in the principles of ecological flow, climate resilience, and equity. Hydropolitics is no longer just about infrastructure. It is about justice.
Mandate Responsible Frameworks for Critical Mineral Extraction and Value Addition
Cobalt, lithium, manganese, and rare earth elements, resources central to the global energy transition are found in abundance beneath African soil. Yet extraction remains largely governed by opaque deals, external supply chains, and local disempowerment. The OECD, EITI, and AfDB all warn of rising environmental degradation and social tensions unless stronger regulatory frameworks are adopted.
AMCEN must move beyond calls for “sustainable mining” and press for continent-wide standards: mandatory community development agreements, transparency in licensing, and value-addition mandates that keep more economic benefit on the continent. Without these reforms, the global clean energy economy may well reproduce the extractivism of the fossil age under a greener banner.
Institutionalize Intergenerational Equity through Future-Oriented Climate Governance
Every policy made today will shape the environmental conditions of tomorrow’s generations. Yet most climate planning across the continent remains focused on short-term adaptation, fiscal stabilization, or donor alignment. Intergenerational equity is often invoked but rarely institutionalized. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights recognizes it as a principle, but few countries have embedded it in law. We urge AMCEN to recommend the creation of national intergenerational equity commissions, empowered to review climate and environmental legislation through a future-oriented lens. These bodies should be statutory, independent, and include youth representation. Long-term climate strategies, now required under the Paris Agreement, must be informed by those who will live with their outcomes.
A Closing Plea to All Stakeholders
AMCEN is a moment to reset the narrative and demand governance frameworks that reflect the urgency of now and the promise of what comes next. FIDEP calls on governments, donors, development banks, and UN agencies to listen not only to reports and resolutions, but to the rhythms of lived experience and the principles of climate justice. This is not a moment for caution masquerading as realism. Let this AMCEN@40 be remembered not as a procedural checkpoint, but as a turning point.
Contact
FIDEP Foundation
Email: hello.fidep@gmail.com
A Continental Call for Accountability, Climate Justice, and Energy Sovereignty: the Case of Inga 3
25-27th June 2025
If water is life then rivers must have life. The African Continental Forum on Mega-Dams and the Climate Crisis, held from June 25 to 27, 2025, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, brought together civil society organizations, community leaders, and environmental experts from across 15 African countries. The central focus of the Forum was the controversial Inga 3 Hydropower Project. Participants interrogated the economic, ecological, and human rights implications of the project and called for a moratorium on its development until robust, independent, and participatory impact assessments are conducted.
Inga 3 is envisioned to generate over 11,000 megawatts of electricity, primarily for export to industrial markets in South Africa and neighboring states. Yet the project raises serious questions about who benefits and who bears the cost. Communities near the proposed dam site face displacement, with little evidence of adequate consultation, compensation, or access to future electricity benefits. Although the World Bank itself has identified Inga 3 as a high-risk venture, key financiers remain interested. The analysis below outlines emerging concerns, critiques the current trajectory, and proposes strategic interventions rooted in justice, accountability, and long-term sustainability.
A Rapid Response Analysis
A Continental Call for Accountability, Climate Justice, and Energy Sovereignty: the Case of Inga 3: https://www.fidepfoundation.org/post/a-rapid-response-analysis