WAF - Africa Climate Caravan Overall change objective:
Ensure the inclusion and engagement of communities most affected by climate change (women, youth, indigenous peoples) in the UNFCCC negotiation process (for instance on adaptation, loss and damage, agriculture etc.)
How?
By supporting civil society to participate to get involved; supporting voices in the run up to COP (eg. through the caravan); capacity building; lobby with allies like Women and Gender Constituency and the African feminist taskforce for women and youth delegates to be part of government delegations to be heard by the parties engaged in the negotiation process.
Specifically, this initiative will support participation of country representatives in the Climate chance Summit to be held during the Week for Sustainable Mobility and Climate fromthe 4th to 6th October 2022 in Dakar, Senegal. This week aims to bring together the community of African mobility and climate actors and facilitate exchanges with other international experts. The Climate chance summit offers the opportunity to the participants toreflect on the state of climate finance and the access to financial mechanism in the region. Together, the actors of the SMDC will adopt the “Dakar Declaration”, a high-level contribution to the COP27 which will take place one month later in Egypt.
The multistakeholders -organised Caravan running under the concept African climate caravans will ensure that community members/citizens are present at the meeting and have an opportunity to influence the discussions around the declaration. Oxfam is playing a facilitator role aswe are building and strengthening existing movements across the continent by bringing them into this initiative and using our networks and influence to amplify their voices.
Background:
Across Africa, communities, countries, entire eco-systems are paying the price of global climate inaction. We are witnessing eco-system collapse at a scale never seen before and the depletion of natural resources – the soil, water and air humankind needs to survive – beyond the point of possible regeneration. But it doesn’t need to be thisway.
In November 2022 COP27 will take place in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, and Oxfam will strive to ensure that political and financialcommitments are met to meet the high ambitions expressed in the last COP26 in Glasgow. Oxfam will push for a more inclusive and gender-transformative process in which action to respond to this existential threat happens when and where needed, which sees big emitters taking on their fair share of the burden by cutting emissions and helping pay for the climate response.
A more elaborate advocacy plan is under development and expected to be in place in September 2022. This initiative will align with the objectives of the advocacy strategy and contribute to the achievement of that, especially by ensuring that the voices of those most impacted by climate change are heard, through mobilizations, media, digital and financial support.
The Caravans will facilitate citizens’ participation in policy spaces at national, regional and global levels to show how women are leading their communities to become more resilient; where farmers are adapting their practices to protect food security and biodiversity; how indigenous groups are protecting eco-systemsfromcollapse and how communities are finding ways to deal with the impacts of a crisis they are in no way responsible for.
The people who are most impacted yet least responsible have something to say about it and governments across the world have a duty of care to listen and act.  The Caravans to COP27 will support these groups to be heard and push for action on adaptation and mitigation.