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African Women forge bold actions for climate justice at the 2024 Women’s Climate Assembly in Senegal.

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By Witness Radio and WoMin teams.

Hundreds of African women activists and climate leaders who attended the week-long Women’s Climate Assembly (WCA), held alongside the African People’s Counter COP (APCC) in Saly, Senegal, have declared to fiercely protect Africa’s natural resources from the rampant exploitation by countries in the Global North.

The Pan-African radical space ignited a powerful collective movement, uniting Africans most deeply affected by rampant resource extraction and ecological destruction, forging a path toward true environmental justice and liberation for Africa’s people.

The WCA highlighted African women’s central role in defending the continent’s natural resources, which countries in the Global North have long exploited. Activists and leaders called for urgent action to protect Africa’s wealth, including minerals like cobalt and lithium, oil, and vast tracts of forested land, which have fueled global industries while devastating local environments.

Activist Ndieme Ndong from Senegal spoke ardently about this exploitation: “All the wealth is coming from Africa. Gold, phosphate, oil, cobalt – everything is coming from Africa. But foreign powers bribe our leaders and rob us of our resources. If we look at all the wealth in Europe, all the wealth they are using in the factories and plants in Europe, everything comes from Africa.”

Held alongside the African People’s Counter COP, this annual assembly set a powerful precedent for future collaborations and united efforts toward a more just and sustainable future for Africa and the world. The activists noted that women have often been sidelined in climate advocacy despite the devastating effects Africa and the rest of the world are facing.

“The 2024 Women’s Climate Assembly has demonstrated that when women unite, they can be a powerful force for change. African women are determined to ensure that their demands and impactful organizing in the fight against the climate crisis are both heard and seen.” The activists mentioned in a statement released shortly after the event.

The assembly also served as a powerful platform for African women to demand gender-responsive climate policies. Africa continues to bear the brunt of climate change’s worst consequences as harmful development models driven by Global North companies, such as cobalt and lithium mining fuel conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, oil pollution in the Niger Delta, forest and land grabs for monoculture farming in Cameroon and Uganda among others, and polluted water sources have intensified the call for environmental change. These destructive practices are driving African women, who are disproportionately affected, to lead the resistance.

“In my village in Côte d’Ivoire, if we want to get outside our community, we need a gate pass to explain why we are going out. When we are in our village, you cannot move your goods freely. There are guards, uniformed men, always in yellow, who monitor movements on behalf of the palm oil company. Many women have been arrested and put in prison by these wicked multinationals just because they are picking fruits of the palm for themselves. This is OUR land. We had to do something. We had to fight for the liberation of these women. So, as women, we organized.” – Josiane Boyo, from Cote d’Ivoire, revealed.

Ahead of COP29 in Azerbaijan this November, the WCA and APCC emphasized the critical need to include African women’s voices in global climate negotiations. African women are leading the push for sustainable solutions, demanding the right to say “NO” to harmful extractive and development projects, reparations for environmental damage, and advocating for an end to the climate debt that has burdened their communities.

Over 120 women activists and leaders from across Africa met from October 7th to 11th under the theme “African Women Rise to Defend their Lands, Oceans, and Forests. ” The assembly emphasized the power of women’s leadership in confronting Africa’s most pressing environmental challenges.

The assembly was organized by a steering group of women’s movements, grassroots networks, and a few NGOs working in solidarity with women in resistance, and 200 women from across West, Central, East, and Southern Africa were gathered last year. The delegates, representing 70 communities and organizations from 17 countries, are at the forefront of resistance against large development projects that extract and exploit Africa’s natural resource wealth at the expense of people and the planet.

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Ugandan ​​activist​ asks HSBC to put ‘lives before profit’ as campaigners target bank’s AGM

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Patience Nabukalu, who has experienced climate-related flooding, joins protestors from around the world to deliver a letter to CEO Georges Elhedery criticising the financing of oil, gas and coal projects.

At nine years old, Patience Nabukalu was devastated when her friend, Kevin, died in severe flooding that hit their Kampala suburb, Nateete, a former wetland. Witnessing deaths and the destruction of homes and livelihoods in floods made worse by extreme rainfall has had a profound impact on her.

She decided to try to bring about change – to do what she could to amplify the voices of those in the Ugandan communities worst affected by the climate crisis.

Now 27, Nabukalu is one of several young climate activists who travelled to London this week to attend what has been predicted to be the last in-person AGM held by HSBC. They will deliver a letter to the bank’s CEO, Georges Elhedery, urging him to stop financing the expansion of oil, gas and coal projects and harmful industrial agribusiness, and to stop providing money to companies that forcibly remove people from their homes to make way for such infrastructure.

“This is an opportunity to talk to real people, not just an HSBC office,” said Nabukalu, speaking before the meeting at the Intercontinental hotel. “I will be so happy to get the chance to hand over the letter and to ask: ‘Has HSBC measured the damage they have done by financing corporations that are driving the climate crisis?’”

A woman stands in front of a banner with the London financial district skyline behind her.
Nabukalu in London ahead of the protest. Photograph: Jess Midwinter/Action Aid

The letter refers to a 2023 Action Aid report, which identifies HSBC as “the largest European financier of fossil fuels in the global south”, channelling $63.5bn (£48bn) into fossil fuel activities between 2016 and 2022.

The letter to Elhedery, from young people all over the world, refers to HSBC’s plans, announced earlier this year, to review its commitment to scaling back its financing of fossil fuels.

“This has made something very clear: you value profit margins and boardroom agendas more than the lives of millions of people bearing the full brunt of your decisions,” the letter reads.

Environmentalists criticised HSBC after it delayed key parts of its climate goals by 20 years, and watered down environmental targets in a new long-term bonus plan for Elhedery that could be worth up to 600% of his salary. In February, the lender said it was reviewing its net zero emissions policies and targets – which are split between its own operations and those of the companies it finances – after realising its clients and suppliers had “seen more challenges” in cutting their carbon footprint than expected.

The activists’ letter asks “that you not only stand by your commitments to end your support for the fossil fuel industry in line with what the science requires, but also put an end to all lending and underwriting for corporations involved in fossil fuel expansion”.

Nabukalu will also urge the bank to stop funding corporations that are backing the east African crude oil pipeline from Uganda to Tanzania. Once constructed, the pipeline would produce an estimated 379m tonnes of CO2 over 25 years. The main backers of the multimillion-dollar pipeline are the French oil company TotalEnergies and the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

Nabukalu, who has visited people living along the proposed route, said: “This pipeline is already causing damage even before its construction. Thousands and thousands of people have been displaced. They were promised land titles, but have none. Their livelihoods have been sabotaged. They cannot build agriculture, the water table is low, so they have little access to water.

“These people should be at the centre of the bank’s decisions.”

“We will talk to HSBC and ask them to stop financing fossil fuels that are driving the climate crisis,” said Nabukalu. “By continuing to finance TotalEnergies they are destroying our future.”

A report published in April found that those displaced along the pipeline’s proposed route had reported being inadequately compensated and rehoused.

Some western banks have declined to fund it after pressure from a coalition of organisations and community groups.

A spokesperson for HSBC said: “We follow a clear set of sustainability risk policies which support our ambition to align the financed emissions in our portfolio to net zero by 2050. We do not comment on client relationships.”

Source: The Guardian.

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Over 1,000 residents in Uganda’s lost village at risk of extreme hunger

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What you need to know:

 In January, a joint team of soldiers and police evicted more than 400 local people who had been occupying part of the 64 square kilometre Maruzi ranch in Apac District. The most affected were actually residents of Acam-cabu Village.

Acam-cabu Village is no longer a recognised administrative unit in northern Uganda’s Apac District after it was erased from the map of Uganda following a land dispute.

 Since this area is now excluded from the list of existing villages in the country, a total of 1,040 people living in 180 households there cannot now benefit from any government programmes and projects.

 Mr Bosco Wacha, the LCI chairman of Acam-cabu, said the village disappeared from the map of Uganda around 2018.
“Since 2018, I have not been getting my salary and the people who have been isolated because of this confusion are suffering,” Mr Wacha said on the phone on Thursday, May 1, 2025.

 He also said all the households in the lost village are at risk of extreme hunger and starvation because the government has stopped them from engaging in any farming or economic activities.

“There is a severe shortage of food here because we have been stopped from farming. We are not able now to take our children to school and we lack access to healthcare,” said Mr Joe Olwock, the area chairman of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.

Mr Felix Odongo Ococ, Akokoro LC3 chairman, said that although the government doesn’t recognise Acam-cabu as a village in Uganda, during the National Population and Housing Census, 2024, enumerators went and counted people there.

Data obtained from the local leadership of this isolated administrative unit shows that there are 180 households in Acam-cabu. Of these, at least 14 households have one member each and eight households have eight members.

 However, a household regarded as number eight in the document that was reportedly sent to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) has the highest membership, standing at 11 people. This household is followed by number 158, which has 10 members, and household number eight has a total of nine members.

Dr Kenneth Omona, the Minister of Northern Uganda, previously said he would meet the leadership of Apac to try to iron out all issues affecting the community in the district.
In January, a joint team of soldiers and police evicted more than 400 local people who had been occupying part of the 64 square kilometre Maruzi ranch in Apac District. The most affected were actually residents of Acam-cabu Village.

The squatters, numbering over 1,500 occupied the said land around 1995. They had repeatedly ignored various eviction notices, saying the land belongs to their fore grandfathers.

In September 2015, the High Court in Lira issued an interim order blocking Apac District leadership from evicting the affected residents. The district then resorted to using the army and police to evict the squatters.
The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) has established a military detachment to man security of the area.

Source: Monitor.

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EU: Palm oil lobbyists allegedly are trying to “undo” deforestation law, incl. granting “smallholder” exemptions, raising concerns for Indonesian rainforests

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“Palm oil lobbyists water down Europe’s anti-deforestation law”

The European Union made waves when it passed the landmark EUDR “zero deforestation” law in 2023. Unfortunately, multinationals are already trying to undo it.

The new law is an attempt to keep deforestation-linked products out of Europe, but palm oil lobbyists are fighting back, saying its monitoring and tracing requirements could financially harm small farmers.

In part due to these concerns, the EU is giving all importers until 2026 to get up to speed on compliance. But now, lobbyists are pushing the EU to grant smallholders exemptions from the EUDR—a potential death knell for some of Indonesia’s last standing rainforests.

The term “smallholder” is very ambiguous in Indonesia. Some smallholders run impoverished family farms. Others are local elites who abuse their influence to create mini corporate plantations in protected areas, a growing problem for the orangutan capital of the world.

Those elites are a major source of deforestation in Indonesia, but lobbyists want to have the EU pre-label entire geographic regions as being at “minimal risk” for smallholder deforestation, essentially giving them a pass on EUDR requirements.

…the EU … shouldn’t create major loopholes for small, rogue operators. Instead, it should help smallholders reach full compliance…

Original Source:www.ran.org Via  Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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