Climate Change and Land Governance in Africa
Two-day online training programme: 29 – 30 April 2025
The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape is hosting an online pilot short course on Climate Change and Land Governance in Africa from 29-30 April 2025. This is part of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)-funded Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa (NELGA), an initiative of the African Union, the United Nations Commission for Africa, and the African Development Bank. The intervention is primarily in preparation for the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) to be held in Belém, Brazil from November 10–21, 2025.
Africa remains the most vulnerable continent to climate change impacts and land use changes. Climate change and land are two interacting global forces of change that influence each other in a complex and continuous cycle. Climate changes directly impact land uses and ecosystems, while changes in land use can worsen climate change. This signifies a pressing African and global challenge that requires thinking differently about climate change interventions and humanity’s use of land. Despite this reality, existing interventions tend to treat these two forces of change – land and climate – as separate processes. Consequently, the two are hardly integrated in global climate change negotiations under the UNFCCC framework. The same approach applies to other multilateral environmental processes contributing to the African Union Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goal 13 to combat climate change.
To address this gap, this course places the relationship between climate and land at the centre of negotiations for land-based climate policy measures, conservation strategies, carbon deals,transition to renewable energy and critical minerals, climate financing, and climate and agrarian justice. Consequently, the course seeks to engage with the following global debates relevant to Africa across six domain areas.
- An engagement with land-based climate policy responses that continue to dominate the global discussions.
- A critical engagement on how common property rights and local livelihoods are intricately connected to popular climate change related conservation measures (private or public) such as wildlife, forestry, oceans, and marine protection.
- An exploration of whether new environmental green agendas in the name of climate change constitute new forms of appropriation of nature.
- An interrogation of the race for Africa’s critical mineral resources -as a solution to climate change- and to weigh the benefits alongside land use and socio-ecological impacts.
- A discussion on who will pay for the climate policy measures required as the climate crisis aggravates, particularly in Africa which bears little liability for global greenhouse gas emissions.
- To interrogate whether there can be better approaches to implementing climate change policies that can promote more equitable impacts – e.g. for women, pastoralists, people with disabilities, youth and others.
These perspectives are articulated in global climate change negotiations under the UNFCCC alonga complex spectrum of radicals, opportunists, hypocrites, and evaders. There is a need to understand that there cannot be climate justice without gender justice. Within this matrix, a critical issue is for negotiators to grasp the need for agrarian justice which is often treated separately or ignored. In line with promoting agrarian climate justice, the negotiators must interrogate potential solutions in the context of an African land squeeze. At the centre of practical solutions, is the need to engage with global debates around the continent’s prospects to produce,protect, reduce, and restore.
What are the objectives?
The ultimate objective of this course is to develop the capacity of African female and male negotiators in the UNFCCC negotiations to advance an African common position on climate issues. Consequently, the six central objectives of this course are meant to enable negotiators to:
- Deepen their social understanding of the complex and intertwined relationship between climate change and land in Africa;
- Develop a thorough grasp of how common property rights and local livelihoods are intricately connected to climate change related conservation measures such as wildlife, forestry, oceans and marine protection;
- Understand the nature of carbon markets oriented climate solutions in Africa and their different implications for carbon stores, ecologies, land rights, livelihoods, social and gender relations;
- Understand the race for green critical transition minerals and renewable energy production how they reconfigure carbon storages, landscapes and land tenure with varied impacts;
- Examine the state of global climate finance and related gaps in supporting small-scale agri-food systems in Africa with the aim of identifying opportunities for action; and
- Understand the debates and urgent need for climate justice and agrarian justice.
Topics
Key themes covered in the programme include:
- Land-based climate policy measures in Africa
- Conservation and climate change
- Carbon deals and land rights in Africa
- Critical minerals, renewable energy and people’s land rights
- Climate financing in agriculture
- Climate and agrarian justice in Africa
When is it offered?
Learning will consist of six sessions from 29 to 30 April 2025 via online platform. Participants are expected to be online for the entire duration of the training programme. Three sessions will be held per day. Each session will consist of 90 minutes.
- 08.00 – 13.30 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
- 09.00 – 14.30 West African Time (GMT +1)
- 10.00 – 15.30 Central African Time (GMT +2)
- 11.00 – 16.30 East African Time (GMT +3)
Participants will be assessed based on attendance of every session in full, presentations in class,and active class participation. Successful participants will receive an official Certificate of Attendance. The medium of instruction for the course is limited to English.
Who can apply?
We will target participants from the:
- African Group of Negotiators (AGN),
- African Ministries of Environment (AMCEN) and or other relevant ministries and departments
- Youth Negotiators Academy, Regional Economic Communities (RECs)-Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
- selected civil society and African think tanks in demonstrable partnerships with relevant Ministries
- African Female Climate Negotiators will be prioritised
How to apply?
Interested parties are expected to:
- complete the online application form; and
- submit a Curriculum Vitae (CV).
GIZ is funding the pilot course. However, participants will be expected to have a good internet infrastructure to attend the course.
Closing date for applications:
Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Contact:
Carla Henry
Coordinator: Postgraduate & Continuing Education
Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies
Email: nelga@plaas.org.za
Course coordinator:
Dr Phillan Zamchiya
NELGA coordinators:
Prof Ruth Hall, Prof Moenieba Isaacs
