The Climate Chance Summit – Africa 2019 will take place in Accra, Ghana, from October 16 to 18 at the International Conference Centre. According to the organisers, the event will be a wide gathering of 2,000 non-state actors fighting climate change on the African continent, including local governments, businesses, trade unions, environmental NGOs, farmers, women and youth organisations, as well as researchers – united to step up climate action on the continent.
The summit was initiated by the Climate Chance Association. Convinced that the only way to tackle climate change is to coordinate the actions and initiatives in each of the main sectors of greenhouse gas emissions (agriculture, energy, mobility etc.), Climate Chance aims to bring together all the non-state actors fighting climate change.
The Climate Chance Association supports the
central role of local climate action and the inseparable link between the
climate agenda and the sustainable development goals.
For this reason, Climate Chance decided to focus its action in Africa, the most
vulnerable continent to climate change, where the development stakes and
poverty reduction imply coherent and consistent development policies with the
reality of climate change.
Annual African Regional Summits aim to
disseminate and strengthen action to combat climate change in Africa and
are held as milestones in the progress of the sectoral roadmaps of the
actors’ coalitions.
The first Climate Chance Summit Africa 2018 (Abidjan) was the starting point of
the creation of sectoral coalitions specific to the African continent and
the eight resulting sectoral roadmaps (adaptation;
agriculture, food, reforestation; buildings; education and training;
energy; financing; sustainable development cities; mobility and transports).
The upcoming Climate Chance Summit – Africa 2019 in Accra aims to strengthen the African sectoral coalitions created in 2018 and support the projects of these coalitions such as the African sustainable urban planners Alliance, a network of companies and investors in the sector of energy, or an operational roadmap for mobility and transports in Ivory Coast.
Between the summits, these thematic coalitions stay in touch and pursue their work together: during international meetings in which the actors participate, as well as at a distance: the association has set up an online exchange platform where actors can share best practices, calls for projects, funding opportunities etc. The Climate Chance Association wishes to mobilise the community of actors acting for climate in Africa, to reinforce synergies between actors, and to propel their actions, words and priorities to the forefront of the international climate scene.
Climate Chance Summit – Africa is described as an opportunity to increase the number of actors involved in the coalitions. A call for contributions was launched and shared across the African continent in order to identify new projects and initiatives. The 376 received projects will be published on the cartography for climate action on Climate Chance’s website, their representatives will then become members of the coalitions, and 70 among these 376 projects will be showcased during the Summit (renewable energies programme by Oxfam Sierra Leone, building and packaging materials made from coconut husk and sugarcane bagasse by Ecovon.)
Four plenary sessions will also take place during the summit, opening debate between grassroots actors, institutional representatives and personalities (Nana Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana; Jean-Pierre Elong Mbassi, Secretary General of United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa); Ronan Dantec, French Senator and Founder and President of Climate Chance; Soham El Wardini, Mayor of Dakar (Senegal); Luc Gnacadja, past Environment Minister of Benin and Executive secretary of the UN convention on the fight against desertification; Tomasz Chruszczow, high-level climate champion from the UN Convention on climate change, and more), all presenting their issues and proposals.
The first day of the Summit – October 16, will be dedicated to side-events showcasing initiatives, supporting capacity building and networking: a journalists’ training by Climate tracker, a business forum, a presentation of the key findings and recommendations on water and climate from UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Programme, presentation of the project of the African Development Bank on finance and adaptation, the closing of the second stage of the Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA) with the presence of 40 African Mayors, “COP in Africa” simulation of a climate negotiation to raise awareness and mobilise the young people.
