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Held as part of the 2025 Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) Annual Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya (June 23-25), the SSRC’s APN and Next Gen Program brought together six fellows to explore how environmental injustice is shaped by inequality, climate change, and conflict in various African contexts on a program-sponsored panel titled ‘Inequality, Climate Change and Conflict: Emerging Challenges for Environmental Justice in Africa’. Framed within the broader ACUNS theme of “Environmental Multilateralism and Human Development,” the panel session spotlighted African-led scholarship and grounded research findings across Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Ghana, highlighting the continent’s disproportionate vulnerability to climate-induced crises and offering pathways for more equitable and effective global, regional, and local responses.
The APN and Next Gen panel was chaired by Dr. Lilian Kong’ani (University of Cape Town, South Africa) and featured presentations by: Dr. Alice Wabule (Cavendish University, Uganda), Dr. Fadzai Chipato (Great Zimbabwe University, Zimbabwe), Clemente Ntauzi (University of the Western Cape, South Africa), Dr. Issah Suhyini Alhassan (University for Development Studies, Ghana), and Dr. Louis Kusi Frimpong (University of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ghana), who served as a panel discussant.
The panelists raised key themes bordering on environmental degradation, vulnerable communities, governance, and social justice.
Presentations and Reflections
1. Resource Extraction and Community Vulnerability
Dr. Fadzai Chipato’s case study illustrated the intersection between lithium mining, climate change mitigation, inequality, and conflict in the Bikita district, Zimbabwe, and how “strategic partnerships” with foreign firms often marginalize communities, exacerbate environmental degradation, and deepen social inequalities—especially for women. She asked, “Can we call it a just transition if those at the helm of extraction are untouched by its harms?” Dr. Chipato’s study emphasized the need for meaningful inclusion of community voices in decision-making processes and holding organizations like the African Union accountable to avoid reproducing historical patterns of extractivism, which reinforce the “resource curse” narrative and deepen local injustices.
Dr. Alice Wabule explored complex dimensions of devastation in Uganda, including the loss of lives, farmland, and other properties, internal displacement, and distortions in social order, while emphasizing the exacerbating social and economic inequalities caused by these occurrences. Dr. Wabule shared insights on the political exploitation of environmental disasters. In highland areas, aid has been distributed not based on need, but as political patronage. She called for a collaborative interrogation of short-term versus long-term responses to climate crises, innovative research, environmental justice, and equity.
2. Gendered Dimensions of Climate Adaptation
Clemente Ntauzi’s presentation on carbon sequestration in Mozambique revealed how “green” interventions can reinforce patriarchal structures. Women face land dispossession and exclusion from income-generating activities linked to carbon programs, while local leaders are co-opted to enforce these changes. Ntauzi underscored the “importance of inclusive and context-specific interventions and strategies to ensure climate mitigation through carbon sequestration projects, as well as the need to address socio-economic inequality in rural Mozambique by supporting people-centered strategies and resource governance practices and projects designed to foster food security, higher incomes, climate justice, and sustainable development.”
Using a newly developed community-weighted vulnerability index and Tobit regression analysis, Dr. Issah Suhyini Alhassan’s study found that environmental factors—more than institutional or socio-demographic ones—are the primary drivers of vulnerability. Through his research, Dr. Alhassan examined livelihood vulnerability among households affected by the growing incidence of farmer-herder conflicts in Africa and highlighted that sedentary farmers and herders are the most exposed, while transhumant herders are the most sensitive to conflict. The analysis also shows that conflict exposure and sensitivity contribute more to vulnerability than a lack of adaptive capacity. To promote environmental justice and peaceful coexistence, he recommends policies that address exposure and sensitivity, such as fair resource allocation, stronger community resilience, inclusive governance, and improved trust in conflict-resolution institutions.
3. Governance, Participation, and Justice
Across presentations, the lack of proactive governance and accountability mechanisms emerged as a critical concern. Dr. Louis Kusi Frimpong emphasized the absence of disaster preparedness and meaningful stakeholder engagement as root causes of exploitation and marginalization. “Who is protecting the rights of local communities?” he asked while calling for a dismantling of current social structures and weak local leadership.
Dr. Lilian Kong’ani posed a closing question to the group: How can we better integrate local participation in environmental governance? Panelists advised that many communities are unaware of their right to engage, highlighting a crucial gap in civic awareness and institutional responsiveness.
Recommendations: Advancing Environmental Justice Through Inclusive Governance, Local Empowerment, and Regional Accountability
- Strengthen Regulatory and Accountability Mechanisms
Governments and regional institutions must develop clear frameworks to monitor corporate practices, particularly in resource extraction. - Prioritize Community Engagement
Local voices must be included from the design to the implementation stage of environmental and adaptation projects. - Invest in Civic Education
Expand awareness at the community level about rights, environmental governance, and how to engage with local and national institutions. - Leverage African Institutions
Institutions like the African Union and ECOWAS must be held accountable to ensure equity in environmental transitions. - Support Contextual, Interdisciplinary Research
Continued funding for African scholars is critical to understanding and solving region-specific environmental justice issues.
When the panelists were asked to reflect on reforms that are most urgently needed within the United Nations and the broader international community to remain relevant and responsive to challenges of violent conflict, poverty, and climate change, especially from an African perspective and in connection to your research, they proposed the following calls to action.
A Call for Action to the United Nations and International Community
- Amplify African Representation in Global Governance
Push for African leadership and participation in the UN and global institutions, ensuring African voices shape international policies and decisions.
- Reform Global Frameworks for Equity and Inclusion
Democratize climate and peacebuilding systems to reflect local contexts, with strong inclusion of women, youth, and marginalized communities.
- Center for Indigenous and Community-Based Solutions
Elevate traditional knowledge and locally rooted practices to tackle conflict, poverty, and climate issues effectively.
- Adopt Integrated, Systems-Based Approaches
Address the interconnectedness of global challenges, such as climate, conflict, and poverty, by breaking down policy silos (e.g., SDGs, Agenda 2063).
- Support Locally Led, Co-Designed Solutions
Promote participatory approaches that treat local actors as partners, with investment in local capacity and alignment with African realities.