The People Behind Our Placards
- FIDEP Foundation ER Paper
- Jul 23
- 1 min read
A People-First Reflection on the 2025 UNEP Major Groups and Stakeholders Regional Consultative Meeting – Africa
Issued by: FIDEP Foundation
Date: 23 July 2025
Location: Accra, Ghana
In Brief
From youth networks resisting extractivism to women building agroecological economies, the frontline actors of Africa’s environmental future are already leading. This paper merely acknowledges that the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN@40) should not be seen as a celebration of institutional memory, but an open space for inclusive institutional integration and advancement. The 2025 Regional Consultative Meeting (RCM) for UNEP’s Major Groups and Stakeholders (MGS-Africa) clearly shows that African stakeholders are ready to set the pace.
Relying on treaty data, regional statements and grounded lived-experiences across Africa, this paper calls for a new era of environmental multilateralism that sees civic space as critical infrastructure for regional transformation, where Africa’s youth move from stakeholders to co-legislators at the national and regional levels. With creative proposals like a Treaty Accountability Mechanism, rapid-deployment community funds and mandatory youth representation in AMCEN delegations, we argue for institutions that match the urgency of the moment with courage. The paper observes that real transformation will not come from people in power, but from people who need a change, who set the agenda, who monitor delivery and who receives the resources. Read More Here...
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