For the past 50 years, every April 22 Earth Day has been celebrated by billions of people around the globe. It is a day to join together in promoting awareness for the health of our environment. This years’ theme is ‘Invest in our planet’ and we love to show how Hivos has been investing in our planet, and people, through our Climate Justice programs.
Transformational social change
In our opinion climate change is a political, social and ethical issue, rather than a purely environmental one. It is caused by an unsustainable economic model that gradually destabilizes everything we need and want, and distributes wealth and power unequally in the world. At the same time, it exacerbates this inequality by affecting those who are least responsible the most.
In this context, Hivos works with key rightsholder groups and social movements from the Global South in putting their priorities and agency at the center of global climate action. By forging multi-stakeholder partnerships and building on our track record, we aim to promote Climate Justice by focusing on political, financial and behavioral interventions that will trigger the tipping points of positive, transformational social change. You can read our full ambition, approach and Theory of Change in our Climate Justice white paper.
Hivos highlights Climate Justice
So what has Hivos been doing? Through our various programs we build a strong movement of civil society organizations that represent a wide range of constituencies and are willing to unite behind a common climate agenda. Here are some impact examples:
- Last year we started implementing the Voices for Just Climate Action program in 7 countries. Contract lead is World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Netherlands, and our partners are SouthSouthNorth, Akina Mama wa Afrika, Slum Dwellers International and Fundación Avina.
- Also last year our All Eyes on the Amazon program launched an Amazon defense learning platform that presents innovative and collaborative ways to stimulate collective learning about the fight against deforestation and degradation of the amazon rainforest, and the violation of the rights of its inhabitants.
- ENERGIA, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, has over the years trained and supported about 8,000 women entrepreneurs in the clean energy field.
- Since its start the GreenWorks program put together an alliance of incubators, accelerators, think tanks and angel investment networks to create sustainable job opportunities for 9.000 young people in North Africa.
- And in November 2021 we took part in the COP26 and Hivos programs attended and hosted side events at the COP26 in Glasgow with the joint goal of putting justice at the core of global climate action and focusing on the priorities and agency of those disproportionally impacted by climate change. We supported 8 civil society and grassroots organizations to attend, which were mostly represented by women.
Want to know more about our Climate Justice programs? Find an overview here.
