Paper short abstract

Environmental degradation and climate change threaten livelihoods in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. This study shows that grassroots climate action and community agency enhance resilience and challenge unequal power relations, highlighting the need for inclusive, justice-driven climate governance.

Paper long abstract

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria continues to experience environmental degradation driven by oil exploitation, climate change, and weak governance, with serious consequences for livelihoods and socio-ecological sustainability. Communities face heightened vulnerability as dependence on climate-sensitive natural resources intersects with political and economic marginalisation. While policy responses often portray affected populations as passive victims, this paper foregrounds grassroots climate action and community agency as drivers of transformative development futures. Anchored in climate justice and political ecology frameworks, the study examines how community-led initiatives—including environmental monitoring, livelihood diversification, collective adaptation practices, and advocacy for environmental accountability—shape resilience and development trajectories in selected Niger Delta communities. A qualitative case study approach is adopted, drawing on secondary data, policy documents, and empirical insights from community-based livelihood systems to analyse the relationship between grassroots climate action and transformative outcomes. The findings show that strong community agency enhances adaptive capacity, strengthens social cohesion, improves livelihood sustainability, and enables communities to contest unequal power relations involving the state and extractive corporations. However, the transformative potential of grassroots initiatives is constrained by limited institutional support, political exclusion, and unequal access to climate finance and decision-making spaces. The paper argues that sustainable development in the Niger Delta cannot be achieved through top-down environmental policies alone. It concludes by calling for inclusive climate governance that recognises and integrates community-led initiatives into national climate strategies, thereby advancing locally driven, equitable, and resilient development futures in the region.

Paper short abstract

This paper shows how community-led climate and health task teams in marginalised rural Zimbabwe redistribute power, strengthen local resilience, and challenge top-down development models thus demonstrating that climate-resilient development is a political process grounded in community agency.

Paper long abstract

Climate change is intensifying structural vulnerabilities in marginalised regions, positioning health systems as critical arenas where power, inequality, and resilience converge. In Zimbabwe’s historically under-resourced Binga district, recurrent floods, heatwaves, and climate-sensitive disease outbreaks have exposed the limitations of top-down development and adaptation models. This paper examines how community- and district-level Climate and Health Task teams, initiated under Pangaea Zimbabwe’s Wild4Life programme, reconfigure local power relations and promoting community agency.

The paper draws on a case study analysing an intervention that institutionalised participatory climate governance within local health and community systems. The initiative established district and ward Climate and Health Task Teams, integrated community voices into health planning, invested in climate-resilient infrastructure, and strengthened the capacities of frontline health workers. Rather than positioning communities as passive beneficiaries, the model foregrounded local knowledge, collective action, and co-production of climate responses.

After one year, all 17 targeted health facilities (100%) were upgraded to climate-resilient standards and equipped with renewable energy, mobile outreach services expanded by 50% to reach remote populations and locally led climate-health initiatives continued beyond external project funding. Importantly, community leaders, women, youth, and frontline health workers emerged as advocates and role models for climate-responsive health and livelihood practices, challenging entrenched hierarchies between technical experts and local actors.

The paper reveals that climate-resilient development is not only a technical endeavour but a political process requiring the redistribution of power and recommends institutionalising community-led climate-health governance within national systems and recognition of community agency as a central pillar of climate justice.

Paper short abstract

This paper explores climate justice challenges in the DRC, highlighting the limits of adaptation and advocating for transformative change rooted in social equity, governance reform, and local community empowerment to secure sustainable African futures.

Paper long abstract

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) faces severe climate challenges that exacerbate existing socio-economic inequalities and environmental degradation. This paper critically examines the concept of climate justice within the DRC context, emphasizing that traditional adaptation strategies often fall short of addressing systemic injustices and structural drivers of vulnerability. Drawing on interdisciplinary research and field experiences, the study illustrates how climate impacts disproportionately affect marginalized communities, including indigenous peoples, women, and youth, who have limited access to resources and decision-making power.

The paper argues for a shift beyond incremental adaptation toward transformative change that integrates climate action with social justice, inclusive governance, and sustainable development. It highlights the role of local knowledge and community-led initiatives in shaping resilient responses and calls for stronger institutional frameworks to support equitable climate policies. The analysis further discusses the importance of international solidarity and reparative measures that recognize historical responsibilities and support capacity building in the Global South.

Ultimately, this paper contributes to ongoing dialogues on African futures by advocating a holistic approach that connects climate justice to broader struggles for peace, democracy, and human rights. It aims to inform policymakers, scholars, and practitioners engaged in climate governance and development in the DRC and similar contexts.

Paper short abstract

This paper examines participatory visual methods in climate adaptation research through a pilot study in Nigeria’s Lake Chad region. It shows how localised approaches can obscure structural drivers of vulnerability, and proposes a critical, justice-oriented framework of situated climate knowledge.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the potential and limitations of participatory visual methods in researching locally led climate adaptation, drawing on a pilot study with farming communities in Nigeria’s Lake Chad region. We examine knowledge systems as the foundation of climate adaptation, shaping how communities understand and respond to climate change. Using photovoice diaries, we explore how participatory visual research surfaces tensions between indigenous and dominant Western knowledge systems. We observe that participatory approaches tend to centre the local, and as such risk neglecting the global political and economic structures driving climate vulnerability, leading to apolitical or technocratic framings of adaptation. Revisiting the core theory of participatory research - Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy - we argue that embedding participatory research in conscientização (critical consciousness) can make it truly transformative. In dialogue with Donna Haraway’s notion of situated seeing, we propose a framework that grounds climate understanding in local experience while making visible the structural drivers and power dynamics shaping climate impacts. The paper makes two main contributions: first, it proposes a framework for participatory climate research that brings critical pedagogy into dialogue with climate pedagogy; second, it introduces the concept of situated climate knowledge, which grounds climate understanding in local experience while recognizing structural drivers and supporting adaptation strategies that are both context-specific and justice-oriented.

Paper short abstract

Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, this paper examines how climate-oriented urban transformation in Kigali intersects with land governance, livelihood restructuring, and questions of environmental justice.

Paper long abstract

African cities are increasingly positioned at the forefront of global climate action debates, yet the justice implications of urban climate interventions remain insufficiently examined. Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, is frequently celebrated as a model of environmentally progressive urban governance, with initiatives such as wetland restoration, green infrastructure development, and environmentally oriented spatial planning presented as pathways toward climate-resilient urban futures. However, these transformations also raise critical questions about the social and distributive dimensions of climate justice. This paper examines how climate-oriented urban transformation in Kigali intersects with land governance, livelihood restructuring, and questions of environmental justice. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, stakeholder interviews, and policy analysis conducted between 2019 and 2024, the study investigates how large-scale urban redevelopment and environmental protection initiatives – often justified in the name of climate resilience – reshape access to land, housing, and livelihood opportunities for urban residents. While these interventions contribute to important environmental objectives, they may also generate new forms of socio-spatial inequality through processes of land expropriation, displacement, and the reconfiguration of informal livelihoods. By situating Kigali within broader debates on climate justice and African urban futures, the paper argues that climate action in rapidly urbanising contexts must be evaluated not only through environmental outcomes but also through its procedural, distributive, and generational justice implications. The analysis highlights the need for climate governance frameworks that place local livelihoods, social equity, and inclusive participation at the centre of Africa’s emerging pathways toward sustainable urban transformation.