"Our children are learning under trees. Communities displaced daily by lakes have no one to turn to. The poor are getting poorer. Food is scarce. Water is scarce. (…) Power is conferred by the people. Power must be used only for the benefit of the people.”  Linda Katiba (Protect the Constitution) Coalition, Kenya 

2022 will mark the 30th anniversary of the first “Earth Summit” that gave rise to three “sister“ Rio environmental Conventions focusing on land degradation, biodiversity, and climate change. With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development in 2015, the international community took a further step towards building an overarching framework for addressing human and planetary resilience.  

Despite this achievement, progress towards agreed global targets remains seriously offtrack. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 expressed particular concern about rising food insecurity, alarming rates of environmental degradation, and the persistence of “dramatic levels of inequality” in all regions. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has further deepened these inequalities, “and risks sending over 70 million people into extreme poverty,” there is increased recognition that getting the SDGs back on track and preventing the worst impacts of climate change requires transformative multistakeholder action at unprecedented scales.  

Yet a growing number of analyses apportion a large part of the blame for the lack of progress to the governance gap – or “missing middle” – between national and global ambitions and the realities of local communities who bear the brunt of climate impacts. The 2019 State of the Climate in Africa report found that the first generation of African Nationally Determined Contributions had “little or no cross-sectoral consultation, even less consultation with other stakeholders such as the private sector, labour and communities, and largely assumed the availability of international financing for their implementation.”  

Smallholder farmers, pastoralists, the urban poor, and other vulnerable groups in Africa, are already paying a disproportionate share of the price for accelerated climate change. Addressing their needs while protecting Africa’s rich biodiversity is too daunting a challenge for individual projects, programmes, or even governments. By supporting nature-based solutions such as the expansion of agroecological approaches or restoring degraded landscapes for agriculture and other productive uses, international partnerships can help to create alliances across land, food, and climate change communities that are critical in building climate-resilient landscapes.  

Event synopsis 

Building on preceding discussions that highlighted the importance of the progressive realisation of the right to food to achieve climate resilience, this event will bring together speakers from the human rights, climate, research, and development cooperation sectors to further explore how international partnerships can galvanise more inclusive climate governance at national and sub-national levels.  

Organised around two interactive panel sessions, the discussions will start by exploring what we mean by the “missing middle” and its impact on efforts to scale up climate-resilient landscapes in Africa. Drawing on good practices, as well as “cautionary tales” from international climate cooperation in a number of country contexts, speakers will further highlight the role of inclusive local governance processes in bridging this implementation gap. A closing synthesis session will highlight some necessary elements for building transforming partnerships between African and European stakeholders in order to contribute towards bridging this gap.