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African civil society wishes to speak with one voice in order to be heard in the climate negotiations, at the pre-COP in Kinshasa and at the COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, through an unprecedented initiative: the African caravan for the climate. 375 organizations have come together to collect the demands of citizens across 28 African countries in order to prepare a common plea.
Sena Alouka, founder of the movement of Young volunteers for the environment, is the coordinator of this African caravan for the Climate and he sums up the spirit. This caravan must for him go to meet the populations to show the impact of climate change on thembut also the solutions that are found by the latter:
« The objective is to carry these voices, to put them together and to consolidate, with a view to advocacy within the framework of negotiations such as the pre-COP or the upcoming COP. We went around the mountains, we went to visit communities on stilts in Benin. We went to the forests in the Congo. We crossed swamps in Senegal. The idea is to be able to listen to citizens, create synergy platforms between them and be able to bring this message as an element of advocacy and influence decisions. For decisions to be supportive of what communities are saying, issues related to agriculture, issues related to finance, issues related to climate justice, the need to be able to stop the climate crisis ».
More commitment requested from African States and polluting countries
The common plea that must come out of this caravan, summarizes Azara Remalia Sanogo, co-organizer of the caravan and regional adviser “Food and climate justice” for Oxfam West Africa, is addressed in particular to African States so that the policies in favor of the climate are accelerating.
« We are indeed addressing our Heads of State, our national and decentralized authorities to request that ecological transitions be accelerated, in particular the agroecological transition, not only the securing of land and natural resources, but also agroecology and the agroforestry, water conservation, biodiversity conservation, and that our States can take the necessary measures, laws, texts and enforce them in our countries, and that this transition be accelerated. »
But this plea is also addressed to the rich countries which must help finance the continent’s infrastructure: “ The other central demand that we have of rich polluting countries is, first of all, that they respect the financing commitments of 100 billion dollars. This promise has been made since 2009, and we see that in 2022 there is still a gap. The other commitment they have made in relation to climate finance is to find adaptation finance. Again, since the announcement was made last year in Glasgow, we do not know how they intend to respect this commitment. So we ask them to actually implement these promises ».
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