USAID Youth and Climate Briefer.pdf

USAID BRIEFER

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ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH YOUTH AND EMERGING LEADERS

Key Partners in Innovation and Sustainability at Scale

“We are the last generation that can end climate change. We can and we will.”

Khishigjargal, 24, Mongolia.

The Strategic Imperative of Youth, Climate, and Global Prosperity and Stability

The impacts of climate change will disproportionately define future opportunities and challenges for young people for the foreseeable future. USAID is committed to engaging youth and emerging leaders by supporting their efforts to tackle climate change-related issues through participation, advocacy, networking, and innovation in their communities and globally.

Concern about climate change is one of the top three issues of concern for young people globally according to recent surveys. Only nine percent of youth are very confident that the world will act quickly enough to address climate change.1 Encouragingly, around 89 percent of youth respondents say young people can make a difference on climate change. Young people are key actors in raising awareness, running educational programs, promoting sustainable lifestyles, conserving nature, supporting renewable energy, adopting environmentally friendly practices and implementing adaptation and mitigation projects.2 Youth under age 30 constitute the majority of the population in many countries and have an increasingly strong social and

1 UNEP, GlobeScan Survey, https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/environment-climate-change/

2 UNFCCC

environmental awareness, which has the power to transform our societies towards a low-carbon and climate-resilient future.3

Young people will face the most severe consequences of environmental degradation and will be forced to deal with these ongoing consequences throughout their lives.4 The increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events and other adverse effects of climate change are negatively impacting living standards, including food security, water availability, health and safety conditions, housing security, agricultural productivity, and natural ecosystems.5 These negative impacts will most severely affect the developing world. Young women and girls will be disproportionately impacted as they are the most vulnerable to natural hazards and face significantly higher mortality rates due to their lower access to and control of resources such as shelter and food. Climate change and its many impacts will leave marginalized and vulnerable populations, such as youth, and future generations, to suffer its worst consequences.

Four Key Opportunities for Mission Programming on Youth and Climate Nexus:

USAID supports a Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach to integrating youth and climate change. PYD engages youth along with their families, communities, and/or governments so that youth are empowered to reach their full potential. The PYD approach builds skills, assets, and competencies; fosters healthy relationships; strengthens the environment; and transforms systems. As such, leveraging youth and emerging leaders for improved climate outcomes can benefit from a focus on building:

1. Assets: Strengthen youth climate action knowledge and skills

2. Contribution: Integrate youth into opportunities for action

3. Enabling Environment: Strengthen country, regional and global climate networks

4. Enabling Environment: Create partnerships and seed capital for youth climate action

Assets: Strengthen Youth Climate Action Knowledge and Skills

Illustrative Projects and Interventions Summary:

● Climate-smart civic education and engagement.

○ USAID Nepal’s Paani activity established 15 eco-clubs with youth 10-19 in the

Middle Rapti, Bogatan Lagam, and Thuligaad watersheds in collaboration with schools and local governments. The eco-clubs are voluntary groups that promote youth engagement in freshwater biodiversity conservation and climate change resilience. Paani provided 14 days of basic river guide training to 20 fisher community youth, which addressed the shortage of rafting guides in the Karnali while providing marginalized youth a source of income. Paani also supported the

Youth Alliance for the Environment, a strong environment advocacy group, to map and assess pollution stresses on water resources in four watersheds in western Nepal, and the information has been used to initiate spring source

3 United Nations Joint Framework Initiative on Children, Youth and Climate Change, http://bit.ly/1FBQsfy 4 UN World Youth Report: Youth and Climate Change 5 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ http://bit.ly/1FBQsfy https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/WYR2010Final%20online%20version.pdf https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/WYR2010Final%20online%20version.pdf https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/WYR2010Final%20online%20version.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ conservation activities such as recharge ponds, gully control, plantation and fencing.

● Leadership and advocacy skills.

○ In Nigeria, Adejoke Lasisi, a USAID-funded Young African Leaders Initiative

(YALI) alumna uses her weaving skills to convert textile and plastic waste into eco-friendly products. Many people in Adejoke’s community dump or burn waste, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. This, coupled with her desire to preserve Nigeria’s cultural heritage, prompted Adejoke to begin taking trash from the streets, redefining its purpose, and weaving it into beautiful and sustainable products. She founded Jokelinks Weaving School and Planet 3R to create economic opportunities for unemployed youth by providing recycling and waste management training. In just one year, Planet 3R has collected 58,352 kg of recyclable waste of which approximately 20,000 kg would have been burned, created 16 jobs, trained more than 102 young people, and taught over 4,300 students about waste management and recycling. “I hope that other young people will be able to save the environment with their hands too. The more wastepreneurs we have, the cleaner our environment becomes.” - Adejoke Lasisi

○ In Uganda, Heizal Nagginda (USAID YALI alumna) founded the youth organization known as Climate Operation to educate children and communities about climate change, and its intersections. She also does climate change-related activities with youth such as planting fruit trees. Heizal believes that connecting youth with nature is the best way to make them see that climate change has a human impact, but that there is also something that can be done.

She was published in a Refinery29 Earth Day article called "The Black Eco List:

Black Women Making Environmental History Now."

○ In Ethiopia, Yared Abera is a youth climate leader and YALI alumnus, as well as

Founder of a youth-led environmental organization called The Youth Print. He is the Regional Leadership Center Ethiopian Chapter President, and an

Ambassador for the African Youth Climate Hub. Yared served as Co-Executive

Director at the Youth Negotiation on Climate Change Convention, which trained young people in awareness, capacity building, and influencing youth policy so that youth have a platform for climate negotiations. “I aspire to be one of the top climate negotiators and climate diplomats for my country” - Yared Abera

Contribution: Integrate youth into opportunities for action

● Natural Climate Solutions and Natural Resource Management:

○ In Cambodia, the Keo Seima Conservation Project (KSCP): In FY 2019, the

Keo Seima Conservation Project (KSCP) engaged over 100 youth (ages 15-35) to increase awareness on the impact of migration of Bunong indigenous youth and cultural beliefs associated with forest on conservation efforts. More than 100 youth participated in the introduction session on education and career choices for youth interested in making an impact in forest and biodiversity conservation.

Additionally, in FY 2019, The Greening Prey Lang (GPL) activity used a https://planet3r.org/ https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/04/10403951/black-eco-list-women-environmentalists-earth-day https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/04/10403951/black-eco-list-women-environmentalists-earth-day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k18cp_fygzg gender and social inclusion approach to engage about 500 youth in various activities including forest patrol, community training, workshop/meeting, and research. GPL is also engaging students with climate information utilization, institutional capacity building, economic benefits, outreach, internships, and study tours to the project sites.

○ Youth-led Reforestation Campaigns - Ethiopia Partnership to plant 4 Billion trees. USAID-funded partners collaborated with the Ethiopian government to mobilize tens of thousands of primarily young people to be part of their campaign to transform the environmental landscape by planting over four billion seedlings in 2019 and supporting their development. In one day, young people and adults planted a record 353 million seedlings.

○ Reducing Oceans Plastics Initiative (Asia). Through grants to local organizations in Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, the Municipal

Waste Recycling Program engaged 200,000 youth in reducing ocean plastic pollution. Youth engagement has a multiplier effect: Introducing educational modules on ocean plastic pollution in the schools is producing a new generation of environmental champions, young people who care deeply about what happens in their schools, homes, and communities. They take this new knowledge home and teach their parents and family members.

○ Food Security/ Climate-smart Agriculture (CSA): Climate change will negatively impact food security through increasing extreme weather events such as droughts and floods that increase the risk of crop failure. The impacts of climate change on food security will impact young people considerably, given their reliance on informal work, more limited access to productive resources, and limited control over their own diets, etc. CSA is one approach to increase the resilience and adaptive capacity of farmers, especially young farmers who often lack the resources to withstand shocks and stressors. CSA is an approach for developing agricultural strategies to secure sustainable food security under climate change. CSA is not a set of practices that can be universally applied, but rather an approach that involves different elements embedded in local contexts.6

Examples of related activities include:

Increasing Knowledge of Agriculture and Veterinary University

Students: CGIAR article on Secret Recipe for Scaling CSA: Youth. The

Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network (CSAYN) in collaboration with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food

Security (CCAFS), the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (the

Alliance) and the University of Nairobi (UoN), held the inaugural Climate-

Smart Agriculture (CSA) Campus Forum at UoN. It aimed to build the

6 FAO, Climate-smart Agriculture; and CGIAR, CCAFS, Climate-smart Agriculture; accessed May 11, 2021. CSA aims to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and support equitable increases in incomes, food security and development;

adapt and build resilience to climate change; and reduce and/or remove greenhouse gas emissions, where possible.

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-snags-ethiopia-scales-massive-tree-planting.html https://phys.org/news/2020-06-snags-ethiopia-scales-massive-tree-planting.html https://ccafs.cgiar.org/news/secret-recipe-scaling-climate-smart-agriculture-youth http://csayn.org/ https://ciat.cgiar.org/alliance/ https://ciat.cgiar.org/alliance/ https://www.uonbi.ac.ke/ https://cavs.uonbi.ac.ke/latest-news/climate-smart-agriculture-csa-campus-forum https://cavs.uonbi.ac.ke/latest-news/climate-smart-agriculture-csa-campus-forum http://www.fao.org/climate-smart-agriculture/en/#:~:text=Climate%2Dsmart%20agriculture%20(CSA),security%20in%20a%20changing%20climate.

https://ccafs.cgiar.org/climate-smart-agriculture-0#:~:text=What%20defines%20climate%2Dsmart%20agriculture%3F&text=adapting%20and%20building%20resilience%20of,crops%2C%20livestock%20and%20fisheries).

http://www.fao.org/climate-change/en/ capacity of students taking agriculture courses in CSA and equip them with knowledge to harness major opportunities in agribusiness. The

Forum attracted 464 students from the College of Agriculture and

Veterinary Sciences (CAVS), research scientists in CSA, professionals from research and development organizations, young champion farmers implementing CSA and faculty from UoN. The forum was broadcast on television and livestreamed by TV47 to Kenya’s 47 Counties. One of the topics covered at the forum was on digital farming tools to scale up climate-smart agricultural practices and discussed tailored platforms for disseminating information about CSA to youth to help build their capacity.

Agroforestry incentives and communication campaign: The Youth

Cafe is a Kenya-based non-profit organization that works to promote youth-led approaches to African development by empowering and amplifying the voices of young people. Its Youth na Biz project aims to solve two problems together: climate and environment preservation and creation of jobs for the youth. Through a collaboration with the African

Union and its initiative to combat land degradation and desertification in the Sahel-Sahara region, this project promotes sustainable agroforestry by training young people and farmers in rural regions, implementing an incentive system for agroforestry practices and launching an communication campaign to connect young people in relevant rural areas and around the world.

Initiatives by YALI Leaders: Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) leaders are implementing a wide variety of projects and initiatives to address climate change, including one working to transform agricultural waste into cooking fuel. Cletus Baalongbuoro of Ghana is the CEO of

Ponna Briquettes, which uses organic waste efficiently by recycling it into a smokeless, low-cost alternative charcoal that can be used for cooking, replacing wood burning. This process also decreases deforestation in

Ghana. Through Ponna Briquettes, Cletus has created jobs for countless women, educated Ghanaian youth, and reduced household expenses on cooking fuel.

○ From Green Jobs7 to Green Outcomes for Youth: Addressing climate change and creating good jobs are the primary concerns of today’s youth.1 Therefore, youth programming could be more effective at engaging youth if it includes the development and scaling of green(er) jobs and/or practices that respond to the realities of specific contexts and that lead to green outcomes. These outcomes

7 ILO 2016. What is a green job? https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/green-jobs/news/WCMS_220248/lang--en/index.htm.

Accessed May 11, 2021. According to the ILO definition, green jobs are decent jobs that help: improve energy and raw materials efficiency, limit greenhouse gas emissions, minimize waste and pollution, protect and restore ecosystems, and/or support adaptation to the effects of climate change.

https://cavs.uonbi.ac.ke/ https://www.pscp.tv/w/1djxXQarXrjKZ https://www.climatelinks.org/blog/investing-todays-youth-sustainable-tomorrow https://www.climatelinks.org/blog/investing-todays-youth-sustainable-tomorrow https://medium.com/usaid-2030/how-5-young-african-leaders-are-addressing-climate-change-5e10fd12133c https://medium.com/usaid-2030/how-5-young-african-leaders-are-addressing-climate-change-5e10fd12133c https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/green-jobs/news/WCMS_220248/lang--en/index.htm include, but are not limited to, reducing greenhouse gas intensity through better agricultural practices, reducing pressures to convert land by increasing on-farm productivity or reducing food waste, and professionalizing the water sector to improve water resource management. Greener jobs and techniques can help youth actively contribute to their own resilience and adaptation in the face of climate change and also lead to improved livelihood outcomes.

Examples of related activities:

■ Agrijoven: In Guatemala, the USAID-funded Mercy Corps activity

AgriJoven sought to strengthen the enabling environment for youth through seed funding provided through youth saving groups, and over

500 young people have formed savings and loan groups. The activity also provided access to trainings on innovative agricultural technologies, such as integrated pest management and how to install irrigation systems. A young farmer named Julio once struggled to access a career in farming and now owns an organic coffee farm thanks to the help of AgriJoven.

○ Smogathon Event: Youth are tackling air pollution using satellite data. SERVIR-

Mekong is part of a joint USAID and NASA initiative that uses publicly-available satellite imagery and geospatial tools to assist Lower Mekong governments to manage regional air quality issues. Satellite data provided by NASA, with support from SERVIR-Mekong, will enable communities to accurately identify major fire hotspots, educate them on the severity of the issue and the need for an immediate response. The target audience is youth living in communities with ongoing burning problems. The Smogathon Thailand 2020 event provided a forum for young professionals and challenged them to find creative solutions using satellite data to address smog in Northern Thailand and beyond. A team of young people was awarded the first prize for developing an idea to create a board game to educate elementary school children about the root causes of air pollution and preventive measures students can take. The team hopes to digitize the game into a mobile application to provide broader access to more people affected by smog, particularly in urban areas.

● Wildlife Management:

○ The Hariyo Ban II activity in Nepal engaged 32,670 youth through Community

Based Anti-Poaching Units (CBAPU), eco-clubs, conservation enterprises, eco-tourism, internships for recent college graduates, research grants to university students, and biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation-related training and workshops. A structured tele-survey of 175 of the participants conducted by Hariyo Ban II showed that approximately 68 percent of the participants were able to find employment, including 40 percent of youth who started their own businesses. The employed youths' increased income further contributed to a decline in forest product consumption by shifting from firewood to other types of household cooking fuel such as biogas (38 percent) and liquified petroleum gas (54 percent). The livelihood skills developed reduce the strain on https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/guatemala-youth-agriculture https://servir.adpc.net/ https://servir.adpc.net/ https://www.servirglobal.net/Global/Articles/Article/2724/youth-tackle-air-pollution-using-satellite-data forest resources and enable youth to positively contribute to their communities' broader biodiversity conservation efforts and serve as role models.

● Waste Management:

○ In 2019, the Waste Management program in Georgia works to improve solid waste management at the national and local level in Georgia. To promote youth involvement in introducing modern waste management practices and encourage behavioral changes in broader society, the program supports summer camps, green cafes, competitions, and a micro grants facility that raises the awareness of 500 young people annually about sound waste management issues and involves them in the development of a green economy.

● Gender Climate Action issues:

○ In Rwanda, Ineza Grace (USAID YALI alumna) engages youth to protect and restore the environment and address climate change. Ineza started an NGO, The

Green Fighter, in 2017 to create a networking platform for youth engaged in the fight for a better environment to help them organize community projects, such as school debates and planting trees. Ineza advocates strengthening the African education system so that people are knowledgeable about climate and the environment from an early age. Ineza was named a 2020 National Geographic

Young Explorer for her efforts. “The clock to protect our communities against climate change is fast, and for vulnerable countries such as states in Africa, the clock is faster! Africa’s population is youthful, and we, the youth, see the opportunity and the need to achieve sustainable development through a green economy that considers the safety of the environment.” - Ineza Grace, Rwanda

Enabling Environment: Strengthening Country, Regional and Global Climate Networks

● Creating Partnerships and Seed Capital for Youth Climate Action

○ YALI-Dow Design Challenge on Sustainable Waste Management at the RLC West Africa, Accra: In March 2021, the USAID-funded YALI West Africa program and Dow launched a Sustainable Waste Management Design Challenge to train 48 young Africans in sustainable waste management. The Design Challenge began with a three-week intensive training on sustainability, followed by a nine-week design phase, during which alumni were divided into groups of four to propose an innovative solution to the issue of sustainable waste management in West Africa. At the completion of the Design Challenge alumni will pitch their ideas and receive feedback from a panel of judges. The winning group will receive $10,000 to implement their project or idea. Twelve months of follow on support and mentorship will be provided for finalists.

○ Consult and Inform Young People - UN-HABITAT’s governing council made a decision that if they wanted to serve youth populations they had to institutionalize a mechanism where youth could provide continuous dialogue and feedback.

Today, youth across the world help them engage young and urban changemakers in their climate action campaigns.

http://www.thegreenfighter.org/ http://www.thegreenfighter.org/ https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2021/01/26/our-fall-2020-young-explorers-prove-there-is-always-reason-for-hope/ https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2021/01/26/our-fall-2020-young-explorers-prove-there-is-always-reason-for-hope/ http://yaliwestafrica.net/rlc/index.php/2021/03/15/dow-partners-yali-rlc-accra-to-train-young-africans-in-sustainable-waste-management/ http://yaliwestafrica.net/rlc/index.php/2021/03/15/dow-partners-yali-rlc-accra-to-train-young-africans-in-sustainable-waste-management/ https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00JP6S.pdf

○ Fiji’s youth call for collective action for change on climate crisis - The Prime

Minister of Fiji called on young people to take action in their homes, classrooms, and communities at the Fijian National Youth Climate Action Summit. Young changemakers discussed climate change and how it affects the world in group talks, lectures, presentations, videos and interactive sessions. In an impact statement that was handed over to the Fijian Government in the closing ceremony, participants called for Fijian youth to be recognized as enabling partners and not just as beneficiaries in the country’s climate change efforts.

○ Youth platforms - UNICEF gives young changemakers and climate activists access to their social media platforms, which reaches over twenty million followers. This happened with Alexandria Villaseñor, a 14-year-old activist who is part of #FridaysForFuture – the global movement of young people striking from school to call for climate action.

○ Youth Excel Youth Excel, a global program implemented by IREX and their consortium empowers young leaders and youth-led and youth-serving organizations around the globe to use implementation research to strengthen global development solutions.

Building Climate Action Networks

○ Leveraging www.YouthLead.org - USAID-funded YouthLead network has a broad network of over 13,000 young changemakers many of which are interested or working on climate action issues.

○ Networking Youth Leadership in Climate Action through Youth Leadership

Initiative Networks: YALI, YSEALI, and other exchange programs have developed alumni network which in turn have Climate Action alumni groups that are active in building advocacy and awareness on climate issues.

○ Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network Global

○ Young Professionals for Agriculture Development (YPARD), a global network with over 18,000 web-registered members from more than 70 countries. These two young changemakers from YPARD Nepal will share their experiences with the challenges related to the effects of our changing climate and how they are working towards solutions for climate-resilient agriculture.

Resources and Materials for Missions on Youth/Climate Action

● USAID Climate Strategy

● USAID Recommendations and Illustrative Interventions for Youth in Climate

Action linked to USAID Climate Strategy

● Climate Links - Climate Links is a global knowledge portal for those working at the intersection of climate change and international development. The portal curates and archives technical guidance and knowledge related to USAID’s work to help countries mitigate and adapt to climate change.

https://unhabitat.org/fiji%E2%80%99s-youth-call-for-collective-action-for-change-on-climate-crisis https://www.unicef.org/environment-and-climate-change/youth-action https://www.unicef.org/environment-and-climate-change/youth-action https://www.irex.org/project/youth-excel-our-knowledge-leading-change http://www.youthlead.org/ https://ypard.net/ https://www.usaid.gov/climate/strategy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GPLS373TsU6cATdXn0WO85awMw27rRnH/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GPLS373TsU6cATdXn0WO85awMw27rRnH/edit https://www.climatelinks.org/

● YouthLead Climate Change Starter Kit - This kit contains the best 36 resources on the

YouthLead website related to youth combating climate change. They are a great starting point for youth interested in learning more about the climate crisis and include ways to take meaningful action and steps to take for advocacy campaigns.

● Global Youth Climate Action Network - Climate Action Plan

● YALI Network Climate Resources:

○ Course: Understanding Climate Change ; How Climate Change Affects Africa

○ Blog: 10 ways YALI Network members can help address climate change

○ Campaign: YALI GoesGreen

○ How 5 Young African Leaders are addressing Climate Change

● External Partners and Networks for Collaboration

○ World Bank Youth Climate Ambassadors

○ UNDP Youth in Climate Action Toolkit

○ NOAA Planet Stewards

○ Youth Lead Ambassadors

○ YALI

○ PACJA

https://www.youthlead.org/resources/climate-change-starter-kit https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wbZqrP9elu6RG-P4pmxiGTaGlGxsMAGf/view https://yali.state.gov/course-725/#/ https://yali.state.gov/course-725/#/lesson/the-impacts-how-climate-change-affects-africa-yali https://yali.state.gov/10-ways-yali-network-members-can-help-address-climate-change/ https://yali.state.gov/series/yaligoesgreen/ https://yali.state.gov/series/yaligoesgreen/ https://www.climatelinks.org/blog/how-5-young-african-leaders-are-addressing-climate-change http://y2ycommunity.org/gycn-climate-ambassador-program-2021/ https://sgp.undp.org/images/Publication%20Youth%20in%20Action%20on%20Climate%20Change%20Inspirations%20from%20Around%20the%20World%20English-%20SGP%20examples.pdf https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/planet-stewards/welcome.html https://www.youthlead.org/ https://yali.state.gov/ https://www.pacja.org/

Cleared By:

DDI/EEI Kathryn Stratos

DDI/ID Hub: Nikki Enersen Clear 5/11/2021

DDI/IDH Mike McCabe Cleared 5/1/2021

DDI/Ed Hilary Taft Cleared 5/1/2021

DDI/GenDev: Georgia Hartman Clear 5/10/2021

DDI/Comms: Brianna Beiler Clear w/ edits 5/13/2021

RFS: Jane Lowicki-Zucca Cleared 5/11/2021

RFS: Collin VanBuren Cleared 5/11/2021

Asia: Naria Willis Clear 5/11/2021

AFR: Brad Strickland Clear 5/14/2021

E&E: Sarah Byrne Cleared 5/10/2021

LAC: Ben Rempell Clear 5/10/2021

MENA: Carey Utz Clear 5/10/2021 mailto:sbyrne@usaid.gov