Supporting African leadership in community-driven climate justice

SouthSouthNorth (SSN) is proud to serve as the Regional Learning Partner for East Africa under the Climate Justice Resilience Fund’s (CJRF) Communities First Pilot Fund: Loss and Damage Grants. This innovative initiative aims to directly support communities experiencing the worst impacts of climate change by funding grassroots-led solutions to address climate-related loss and damage (L&D), with a more recent special focus on non-economic loss and damage (NELD).

CJRF’s work on L&D was launched in 2021 with support from the Scottish Government, making it one of the earliest philanthropic efforts to explore how community-led, equitable and inclusive participatory approaches can address loss and damage before the operationalisation of formal global mechanisms. Building on the success of its initial round of funding, CJRF has launched a second phase (2024–2025), again supported by the Scottish Government with an expanded £5 million commitment. This new phase has a clear emphasis on non-economic losses—those impacts of climate change that cannot easily be measured in monetary terms, such as the loss of cultural heritage, biodiversity, traditional knowledge, mental well-being, and community cohesion. The intersectionality of outcomes supporting inclusive gender and decolonial approaches will also be given due attention and focus.

As the East Africa Regional Learning Partner, SSN is providing technical engagement, facilitation, and peer learning support to nine CJRF grantee partners operating in Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, and DR Congo. These partners are implementing diverse and deeply contextual strategies to address non-economic climate impacts, often in vulnerable communities where formal adaptation finance and support remain absent. Through RLNELD, SSN enables horizontal learning, captures lessons emerging from practice, and supports grantees in documenting community narratives that can significantly influence regional and global policy spaces—particularly those related to the UNFCCC’s evolving Loss and Damage mechanisms.

While the RLNELD programme focuses on East Africa, it is part of a broader global learning ecosystem. Parallel grants have also been issued in the Pacific and Bay of Bengal regions, where Pacific Climate Warriors and the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) are leading similar regional learning processes. ICCCAD also serves as the Global Learning Partner, supporting cross-regional exchanges and building a shared understanding of effective, justice-driven approaches to NELD.

The 2024–2025 CJRF Grantees in East Africa

SSN is honoured to collaborate with the following nine grantee organisations working on the frontlines of climate justice and non-economic loss and damage in East Africa:

1. Action Network for the Disabled – ANDY (Kenya)
   ANDY works to improve resilience and adaptive capacities of persons with disabilities to be able to withstand the negative effects of climate change in Nyando sub-county, Kenya. This is done through capacity enhancement on disaster preparedness and early warning signs, community forums and dialogue on climate change and environmental conservation, planting of trees in PWD headed households and schools, capacity building on alternative livelihoods and advocacy on climate justice for persons with disabilities.
2. Agenda for Relief Development Initiative – ARDI (Kenya)
   ARDI perceives a changed society built on love, justice and peace in which citizens live in respect for the individual’s rights and have opportunities to develop themselves holistically. Her mission to save lives, promote self-reliance and dignity through human transformation beyond relief and development prescribes to, and guided by the principles for stabilisation and reconstruction of humanitarian action.
3. Baringo Women and Youth Organisation – BWYO (Kenya)
   BWYO engages the local communities directly first to carry out needs assessments and prioritise according to their wishes. To firm up the needs, we also engage other community stakeholders through key informants, focus group discussions, including women, youth, PWDs, environmental champions and council elders. Through such engagements, we can fully ground the problems that need immediate action, and those that can wait. By this process, the community owns the process. Our engagements are open, free-will and decisions are reached through a consensus.
4. Femmes Solidaires – FESO (DR Congo)
   (FESO), is a coalition of 24 women’s groups from across the DRC advocating for equal energy access and the democratic participation of women in Congolese society. FESO has developed an association – Solidarity of Women of the Congo River’ (SOFFLECO). SOFFLECO is uniting women on the banks of the Congo River and its tributaries, recognising their strong relationship with the river and addressing two key themes: the empowerment of these women; and the protection of the Congo River and the rights of communities that depend on them.
5. Integrated Disabled Women Activities – IDIWA (Uganda)
   IDIWA works with Women and Girls with Disabilities (WGDs) who are at greater risk of adverse effects of climate change. IDIWA NELD efforts are focused on increasing food security through sustainable climate-smart agriculture and nature-based initiatives. IDIWA conducts annual community meetings with WGDs, duty bearers, and community members, who participate in all stages of organisation programs (including assessing service needs and identifying priorities, developing annual work plans and budgets, monitoring and evaluation, outcome harvesting, midterm and endline evaluation) to enhance the sustainability of the program achievements. The meetings provide an opportunity for IDIWA and duty bearers to give feedback and hold one another accountable.
6. Participatory Ecological Land Use Management – PELUM (Uganda)
   PELUM Uganda applies participatory community-inspired approaches to identify vulnerable communities and their needs to intervene on. This informs the selection of community duty bearers for engagement to attain viable solutions to community needs or support interventions collectively with community beneficiaries.  We engage the private sector, development partners, central and local governments, opinion leaders, and cultural/religious leaders with either mandate or resources to sustainably contribute towards addressing community challenges. PELUM Uganda works with member organisations and strategic partners to develop specialised technical assistance packages to address beneficiary challenges in the community.
7. Queen of Peace Foundation – QPF (Kenya)
   The Queen of Peace Foundation (QPF) is a community-based organisation dedicated to promoting peace, resilience, and sustainable livelihoods among indigenous communities in the Ewaso Nyiro Ecosystem, Northern Kenya.
8. Sang’ida Foundation – SPF (Uganda)
   Sangida employs a consultative approach in designing interventions. Working with community groups, the organisation develops priorities, which inform fundraising efforts
9. Woman in the Wild – WIW (Kenya)
   Preserving cultural heritage, empowering women, and promoting sustainable environmental practices to protect the fragile Maasai Mara ecosystem. Initiatives are community-driven and prioritise addressing Non-Economic Loss and Damage (NELD) caused by climate change, including the loss of cultural identity, psychosocial well-being, and environmental degradation.

Through RLNELD, SouthSouthNorth supports these organisations to connect, reflect, and share what is often invisible in mainstream climate finance discussions—the losses that can’t be insured, monetised, or replaced. Together with CJRF and regional learning partners across the globe, we are advancing a new paradigm: one that puts people, justice, and dignity at the centre of the response to climate change.