Climate change is a global crisis, touching all of us, but it is those who are already vulnerable who bear the brunt of its negative impact.

According to the Africa Policy Research Institute, young people across the continent are among the most affected: their future, health, well-being and livelihoods are threatened by the impacts of climate change despite being the least responsible for their causes.

Yet youth have been largely left out of the debate about how to tackle the climate crisis. Africa has the world’s youngest population, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa being below 30 years of age.

This demographic offers opportunities for accelerated economic growth in countries. Investment in youth empowerment and education will prepare the next generation of youth leaders.

But how can engaging with young people strengthen their role in climate adaptation and leadership? Their experiences and insights were pivotal for the development and roll out of CARE’s toolkit purposely designed to enhance youth understanding and ability to contribute to climate action.

Centering youth voices in toolkit development

Launched in June 2023 at the Youth Adaptation Forum organized by the Global Centre for Adaptation in Bonn, Germany, the Toolkit for Youth on Adaptation and Leadership was designed by the CARE Climate Justice Center (CJC) under the Youth Leadership Program of the Global Center for Adaptation (GCA) with financial support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.

A youth-friendly resource, content was developed with input from young people from 8 African countries: Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, who participated via a climate-focused application and selection process coordinated by CARE and GCA.

The toolkit is available in three languages—Arabic, English, and French as these languages are widely spoken on the African continent—and consists of 8 interactive modules covering climate-related concepts, soft skills for climate leadership and strategies for climate adaptation, advocacy and action.

A youth-led rollout catalyzes exponential growth in climate awareness

The CARE Climate Justice Center piloted an online training of trainers with representatives of 40 youth-led organizations across the eight African countries involved in the toolkit’s content development (mentioned above).

Following the pilot, newly trained youth representatives planned and implemented activities to scale the toolkit in their local contexts.

The training of trainers’ model helped to facilitate the rapid scale up of the toolkit from 40 to 900 youths.

In Ghana, the Centre for Green Growth—part of the National Youth Action Group on Climate Change—held webinars between October and November 2023 using content drawn from the toolkit. Of the 50 applicants, 14 successfully completed all the training modules.

As a result of the clear interest and success of the first round of training, the Centre for Green Growth received financial support from the Ban Ki-Moon Centre for Global Citizens Young Women Leadership in Climate Adaptation to conduct new training sessions in 2024 to scale up the program with more participants.

The second round in Ghana received 207 applications from 18 countries: 150 were selected by the Centre for Green Growth and 60 completed the program, reflecting a notable increase in both applications and completions attributable to better publicity of the program.

The participants, between 18 and 35 years of age, included students, unemployed youth and young professionals.

In Kenya, the Nairobi Chapter of Youth for Sustainable Development (YSD) and the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC) who completed CARE’s toolkit training then held several training sessions—in-person, online and in hybrid format—reaching over 900 youths from both rural and urban areas thanks to the collaboration between YSD and the AYICC in pooling their networks.

Participants, between 15 and 35 years old, included high school students, young adults, youth who are out of school as well as from marginalized communities.

The training drew from the toolkit and focused on climate change education, policy advocacy, leadership skills and how to create local adaptation projects to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Youth training can impact a country’s national climate policy

Through YSD, a group of young people, who received the training on the toolkit, also contributed to Kenya’s National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP III) 2023-2027.

The NCCAPIII 2023–2027 is the third five-year plan detailing the eight priority areas which the country will use to address climate change and was developed through extensive consultation of various stakeholders including youths, making it the first youth- and children-centric action plan.

The direct involvement of youth in developing this third generation national climate action plan is a testament to the impact that purposedly trained young people can have on local climate policy reviews.

Making community-based youth climate action a reality

Through its youth leaders, GPE works with young people in partner countries including Ghana and Kenya to influence lasting change in global education.

CARE’s toolkit aligns with this effort as it empowers youth in Ghana and Kenya, and its successful rollout shows a growing interest among African youth to lead climate action.

Language barriers persist in climate education, but youth trainers mitigated this by translating the toolkit’s visual aids into local languages.

Still, scaling up the CARE toolkit—an effort led by youth—also highlighted systematic challenges. Limited internet access was a main barrier to participation.

In Kenya, the full implementation of the toolkit was hindered by limited resources and capacity, namely a shortage of volunteers to support the seminars and disadvantaged youths had difficulty accessing toolkit sessions that were exclusively online.

In Ghana, the Centre for Green Growth also noted that youth-led organizations struggle to access financial resources as securing funding is highly competitive.

Climate action needs young people. And they should be involved in inclusive and transparent decision-making processes to enable their voices to be heard. Youth leaders still struggle to receive accreditation and support to participate in key decision-making platforms such as the annual UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP).

Increased investments by governments, the private sector, philanthropists and funding agencies in youth-led climate initiatives are bound to deliver meaningful impact.

Authorities should establish local funding pools for community-based youth-led initiatives, such as training on adaptation and leadership, to foster youth-led climate education and action at the grassroots level.

The authors are grateful for the contributions from Monica Ellena, Global Advocacy and Communication Lead at the CARE Climate Justice Center.