COP27 Advocacy Strategy: PACJA engages African youth

In the build up towards the 27^th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) set to take place in Egypt later in the year, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance has heightened its engagement with various segments of the African societies including the youth.

In one such engagement last Friday, Philip Kilonzo, the head of policy, advocacy and communication at PACJA organized a two-hour session of engagements with the young digital activists from across Africa on the inclusion of the youth in the PACJA-driven African advocacy strategy toward COP27.

The meeting was also to plot on how best the youth could mobilize their peers across Africa in raising the visibility of African issues ahead of the COP27.

The advocacy framework which is premised on the principles of equality, democracy and transparency will be ensuring just that in its efforts to include the youth in its engagements.

According to Kilonzo, PACJA is about engaging all core constituents to harmonize the narratives ahead of COP27 so that Africa does not enter the global meeting on climate change with divided voices.

Further, Kilonzo added that PACJA is focused on supporting the participation of the youth and providing necessary support to the youth groups/ associations/ movements.

Praising PACJA for the meeting, Pius Oko, formerly, the Programme Manager at the CSODevNet in Nigeria urged the youth to align their engagement strategies to government priority areas to maximize amplification of their voices.

Oko urged the young digital activists, an initiative of PACJA to mobilize other youth groups in varied sectors across Africa towards advocating for the African positions ahead of COP27.

Various other speakers from the YDAs noted that they, more than any other segment of the African society is most at risk from the impacts of climate change and their voices must be heard.