Tunisia is hosting, from February 23 to 25, 2022 in Hammamet, the first official meeting for reflection and annual planning of the “Voice for Just Climate Action (VCA)” program.
This event aims to foster collaboration, local ownership, and networking within the VCA in order to strengthen climate justice action by bringing together all committed partners, said a press release published on Wednesday by the cooperation organization international “Hivos”.
Indeed, “Voice for Just Climate Action (VCA)”, initiated in January 2021, is a lobbying and advocacy program implemented by the World Wide Fund for Nature WWF, the SouthSouthNorth (SSN), Akina Mama Wa Afrika (AMwA), and Hivos under the five-year partnership strategy “Power of Voices”, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.
It aims, by 2025, to ensure that local civil society and disadvantaged groups take a central role as creators, facilitators, and carriers of innovative and inclusive local climate solutions.
According to the VCA program, Tunisia is considered very vulnerable to climate change, likely to suffer the negative effects linked to the increase in average temperatures, the accentuation of aridity, the reduction of precipitation, and the rise in sea level.
Socio-economic and environmental repercussions will affect, in particular, water resources, agriculture and sources of subsistence, ecosystems, coastal zones, health, and the tourism sector.
Through a climate justice approach, the VCA program envisions the evolution of a civic space where the voices of civil society on climate action are heard, as well as those of indigenous and/or marginalized populations.
The local partners that are part of the VCA program are Tunisian Youth Impact (TYI), Friends of Birds, the Tunisian Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (TIPCS), the Tunisian Association for Agricultural and Rural Development (ATUDAR), the Citizenship and Sustainable Development Association (ACDD) and the Continuity of Generations Association (ACG).
For the VCA, not only climate actors are targeted but beyond that, actors working on human rights, artists, cultural organizations, and actors of social entrepreneurship and activists will be engaged to allow a new nation-wide climate justice discourse.
