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Home > News > The Brazzaville Foundation at COP27: Listening to Africa's voice and making it heard

Published on 8 November 2022 / Environment

The Brazzaville Foundation at COP27: Listening to Africa's voice and making it heard

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From November 6 to 18, 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) brings together actors and experts from the public and private sectors, and civil society, to discuss the fight against climate change. The Brazzaville Foundation is present as an NGO with observer status.

Caption (from left to right): Richard Amalvy, Chief Executive ; Jean-Yves Ollivier, Founding Chairman ; Charles Cozette, Public Affairs Consultant, on the Brazzaville Foundation pavilion during COP27, © Brazzaville Foundation.

The stakes of the COP27

COP27 must address four issues: adaptation to climate change, mitigation of emissions, climate finance and "loss and damage". Adaptation to climate change is particularly important for developing countries. Mitigation will aim to limit the emissions of the highest emitting countries. The last two elements relate to financing, including climate justice. This will involve discussing a mechanism to compensate countries for losses and damages due to climate disasters. 

The stakes of the COP27 for Africa

Africa is particularly sensitive to the effects of anthropogenic action on the environment. However, the continent has natural, human and cultural capital that allows it to think of local solutions to the global challenges of climate change. Ancestral knowledge, breakthrough innovations and regional environmental protection initiatives: Africa has arguments to be listened to. With 16% of the world's population, and a very young demography, the African continent is faced with a double challenge: meeting the basic development needs of local populations and mitigating the effects of climate change and adapting.

 

As part of UNFCCC 's annual rotation among the five regions of the world, it was the turn of an African country to take over the COP presidency. But African countries remain outside the main flows of climate finance and remain the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, although they have been responsible for only 4% of historical emissions. COP27 is therefore of particular importance for the countries with which Brazzaville Foundation works, which are waiting for concrete answers for the implementation of the agreements made last year in Glasgow.

Solutions from Africa

The activity conducted by the Brazzaville Foundation during COP27 is entitled: "Climate Change: Solutions from Africa". The aim is to show that Africa has projects to meet the challenges posed by climate change, and to meet the global challenges of adaptation and mitigation. It is another way of conceiving growth, progress and development under climate constraints. This requires the revaluation of Africa's contributions in the field of knowledge and skills. This vision takes into account the natural, human and cultural capital of the continent.

A consultation to listen, understand and act better

During COP27, the Brazzaville Foundation is continuing the consultation started during the PreCOP in Kinshasa to listen to Africa's solutions to the challenges of climate change and to understand its response to global climate issues. Concrete results will be shared with those who have the capacity to act from a political, societal, economic and scientific perspective.

Caption: Interview conducted as part of the consultation at COP27, © Brazzaville Foundation.

The methodology implemented is based on the triptych "listen, understand, act", implemented by a questionnaire that allows to collect African and non-African points of view in order to measure the asymmetries of judgment and the differences in perceptions on the responses to the challenges of climate change. It also aims to understand the perception that Africans have of their own development in the face of climate change and to identify the solutions they see, and to understand the perception that non-Africans have of Africa's ability to find endogenous solutions, in order to then bring the points of view into dialogue. The consultation questionnaire is also designed as an awareness-raising tool to help change perceptions about Africa and the discourse that flows from them. Indeed, the discourse on Africa, forged on past realities and persistent prejudices, must change to reflect contemporary African realities.

The next steps of the consultation

On November 17, during Solution Day, preliminary results will be unveiled during a hybrid event.

 

The Brazzaville Foundation will publish the results in mid-December 2022. A report will be submitted to the African Union and to organisations .

 

The outcomes also target new elements of African advocacy, elements of strengthening the African agenda, a catalog of African solutions, an African solutions incubator project, and a programme capacity building for climate change actors.

 

Find below the interview conducted by La Voix de l'Environnement with Richard Amalvy, Chief Executive of the Brazzaville Foundation, during the COP27 on the consultation " Climate Change:Africa 's Solutions" and more broadly on the Foundation's actions: