Local knowledge for sustainable climate adaptation

In West Africa, women and youth are most affected by climate change despite their minimal environmental footprint. Meanwhile, large corporations that are primarily responsible for pollution dictate climate policy and avoid the consequences of their actions. This bulletin is intended to highlight our counterparts’ work in supporting the resilience and autonomy of local populations in the face of these environmental challenges. Their initiatives, which are restoring ecosystems and building thriving ecological farms, are living proof that sustainable and inclusive solutions to the climate crisis are possible.

What's inside...

Climate plans must include solutions by and for communities

The Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau – once home to prosperous agricultural land that ensured its population's survival – is experiencing the devastating effects of climate change, as the Atlantic Ocean swallows its fields. Inter Pares collaborates with local counterparts in Guinea-Bissau and elsewhere in West Africa, to try to find concrete, community-based solutions to climate change.

Leading the change: Women and youth at the heart of climate action

In Senegal, rural women and youth play a crucial role in natural resource management and climate-change adaptation. However, their participation in decision-making spaces remains limited. Our local counterpart in Senegal, Enda Pronat, is working to reverse this trend by offering tools and training that support the empowerment of women and girls in rural communities’ decision-making spaces.

Mangrove restoration: Local solutions, global impacts

The often-misunderstood mangrove is an ecosystem at the centre of efforts to adapt to climate change in West African coastal and island communities. Mangroves protect communities from storms, filter pollutants from the water, shelter reproducing wildlife, and sequester carbon. 

But climate change is a threat to mangroves as well.

September Bulletin Donation Form