If you do not see young people at the tables in Bonn, look for them on the menus

If Africa wants to influence global adaptation outcomes, including the Global Goal on Adaptation, we need young people who can read negotiation texts, track agenda items, understand indicators, and translate global decisions into national and community action; in other words, Africa needs an adaptation generation

BY NANA MINTA ASIEDU AMPADU-MINTA

Africa is already living the adaptation crisis. The continent is home to 17 of the 20 countries most threatened by climate change, and climate impacts are already taking an estimated 2% to 9% of national budgets across the continent. For communities, those figures show up as floods that close schools, droughts that reduce harvests, heat waves that worsen health risks, and coastal erosion that slowly takes away homes, farms, and memory.

At the same time, Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with about 70% of its population under the age of 30. By 2050, the continent’s youth population is projected to increase by 73%, compared with only 6% in the rest of the world. This means adaptation in Africa is not only a climate policy question, but a generational one as well. So when we young Africans speak about adaptation, we are not only speaking about the future, but also about our present.

I have seen this clearly through youth declarations and youth climate processes. Declarations matter because they capture lived experience, political demands, and the moral clarity of a generation that will live longest with the consequences of today’s decisions. But a youth declaration should not end as a beautiful document shared after a convening. It should become an accountability tool that asks: Which demands are reflected in the National Adaptation Plan? Which priorities have been budgeted? Which ministry or local authority is responsible? Which youth groups are involved in implementation? What data will be used to track progress? Who reports back to communities?

The urgency is obvious. As of September 2025, 144 countries had initiated the National Adaptation Plan process, and 67 developing countries had formally submitted NAPs to the UNFCCC. These plans are becoming roadmaps for resilience in water, food, health, infrastructure, ecosystems, and local development. But if NAPs are to be more than government documents, they must be connected to the people already living and responding to climate impacts. Young people are part of that response.

The African youth climate ecosystem is an emerging delivery system. The State of the Youth Climate Movement in Africa report, produced by Green Africa Youth Organisation (GAYO) and Purpose Africa, examined 75 youth climate organisations across 25 African countries. The report shows that young people are working on policy advocacy, capacity building, environmental conservation, education, grassroots mobilisation, innovation, waste management, climate-smart agriculture, and community implementation. It also shows that youth movements are becoming more institutionalised as only 6% of the organisations interviewed were not yet formally registered, and 40% had 50% or more women in leadership positions.

That evidence matters because it challenges the old assumption that youth are only advocates. Advocacy is important, but young people are also implementers, researchers, organisers, entrepreneurs, communicators, and accountability actors. In the mapping report, policy advocacy and capacity building appeared as two of the strongest areas of youth climate work, while partnerships with local NGOs, community groups, government bodies, and international actors helped youth organisations expand their impact.

But this is also where the contradiction becomes clear. Young people are being asked to help solve a crisis that is underfunded, technically complex, and politically slow-moving, while many youth-led organisations are still operating with fragile resources. The same report highlights finance, human resource and volunteer management, organisational capacity, institutional and legal issues, and technology and communication gaps as barriers limiting youth climate organizations. In research and evidence work, 60% of the 75 organisations interviewed reported lacking adequate funding and resources to conduct comprehensive research projects. So the question is not simply whether young people are inspired, but whether the systems around them are serious.

If adaptation finance is scarce, we need young people who can help design bankable, locally grounded projects. If NAPs are moving into implementation, we need young people who understand local governance, Indigenous knowledge, gender realities, disability inclusion, health, water, agriculture, and participatory planning. If Africa wants to influence global adaptation outcomes, including the Global Goal on Adaptation, we need young people who can read negotiation texts, track agenda items, understand indicators, and translate global decisions into national and community action. In other words, Africa needs an adaptation generation.

That generation will not be built through one-off panels or symbolic youth slots. We need mentorship pipelines, technical training, youth-accessible finance windows, community evidence systems, policy schools, placement opportunities, and digital knowledge platforms that retain lessons across countries and across time.

One of Africa’s biggest adaptation risks is the loss of institutional memory. A negotiator leaves, a project closes, a consultant exits, a funding cycle ends, and the next group starts again from zero. Stronger systems do not work like that. They keep archives, build teams, mentor successors, document lessons, and make sure one generation does not have to begin where the previous one left off.

That is why youth involvement must be framed around three things: institutional memory, workforce readiness, and leadership continuity. Institutional memory means that knowledge from negotiations, advocacy, and implementation is deliberately passed on. Workforce readiness means preparing young Africans with the technical, policy, finance, advocacy, data, and implementation skills needed for the adaptation transition. Leadership continuity means ensuring that today’s youth engagement does not end at a summit, declaration, or COP, but rather strengthens national- and community-level implementation over time.

Every youth adaptation declaration should be mapped against national adaptation priorities, and every NAP review should include a youth accountability session. Every adaptation finance mechanism should include a youth-accessible window, and every major adaptation programme should create structured roles for young people in design, implementation, monitoring, and evidence generation. For governments, this means treating youth organisations as implementation partners, not only consultation participants. For funders, it means providing flexible, accessible, and trust-based resources that strengthen institutions, not just activities. For civil society and regional platforms, it means organising youth capacity around clear areas, such as negotiation literacy, adaptation finance, project design, research, community implementation, communications, and accountability. For youth movements, it means matching passion with discipline, documentation, coordination, and evidence.

So the question is no longer whether young people are present in the boardrooms, but whether they are being prepared, trusted, resourced, mentored, and positioned to advance Africa’s adaptation agenda.

Nana Minta Asiedu Ampadu-Minta is the Chief of Staff, Green Africa Youth Organization, Acrra, Ghana. minta@greenafricayouth.org