Grassroots Led Approaches to Securing Climate Justice in Africa
Friday 4 March 2022 10:00
Eva Maria Okoth (Natural Justice, Kenya)
Mark Obaga (Natural Justice, Nairobi)
Abstract
Evidence of Africa’s vulnerability to climate risks is increasingly becoming apparent through the adverse impacts of climate change witnessed across the region. It is anticipated that as a result of climate change, communities will continue experiencing extreme weather events especially in the form of prolonged drought, increased cyclone activity, storm surges along the continent’s coastal lines and heavy rainfall, all of which will make it harder to forecast, prepare for and manage disasters. As such, questions of climate justice are likely to pose some of the biggest challenges for the African continent particularly around the fundamental rights obligations of African states to their people at a time when most African countries are focused on narrowing their infrastructure and development gaps. In view of the recent wave of strategic litigation on socio-economic rights in Africa, this lecture will endeavour to share some of the lessons and experiences on emerging climate litigation in Africa based on the article “Leveraging Existing Approaches and Tools to Secure Climate Justice in Africa” which was co-authored by the panellists. The paper considers the extent to which climate litigation might benefit from a rights-based approach and highlights the utility of administrative and judicial challenges of impact assessment processes in achieving climate justice. In the paper, we argue that the participatory components of these processes are potentially powerful avenues for the empowerment of local communities on climate change risks and appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures.
Speakers
Eva Maria Anyango Okoth
Eva Maria is an environmental enthusiast who is deeply devoted to the ongoing struggle to secure the human and environmental rights of marginalized communities. She has a wealth of expertise in environmental and climate justice issues, having worked closely, in her role at Natural Justice, with communities affected by mega-extractive, infrastructural, and conservation projects in the coastal and northern parts of Kenya. By supporting Natural Justice’s legal empowerment approaches and litigation strategies, Eva Maria helps empower communities to enable them assert their rights in environmental decision-making processes that can affect their social, economic, political and cultural lives in significant ways.
Eva Maria’s passion for environmental justice has also prompted her to venture into the realm of advocacy by writing thought provoking articles and mobilizing community-led campaigns to push for changes to policies and laws that fail to reflect the interests of indigenous peoples and local communities.
Eva Maria is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and holds a Master of Laws in Public International Law from the University of Nairobi, with a focus on international human rights law, international environmental law, and migration law. She is also an alumni of the Political Leadership and Governance Program (class of 2020) which recognized her efforts as a young environmental rights defender, to create a new political leadership and governance culture for transforming Kenya into a true democratic, value-driven and effective society.
Mark Odaga
Mark is a Senior Programme Manager based in the Nairobi Hub. He is driven by a desire to see that natural resource use and infrastructure development in Kenya and
the region is sustainable and underpinned by a framework which protects and empowers those likely to be most negatively impacted. He provides strategic advice on and supports litigation across the different programme areas. In addition to policy and legal reform advocacy, he also assists in providing technical and legal advice to partners, affected communities and other stakeholders. Before joining Natural Justice Mark was a Dispute Resolution Lawyer at Daly & Inamdar Advocates. He is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya.