The COP27 Africa Regional Resilience Hub welcomes all those involved in adaptation and resilience in Africa to submit session proposals for virtual events that share key African priorities, solutions, challenges and opportunities, in order to bring these regional messages to COP27. The Africa Hub, led by CDKN and SouthSouthNorth, will deliver a programme of virtual sessions from 19-21 September, as well as other face-to-face engagements. 

The vision for the Resilience Hub is to be a significant force in catalysing climate-just action and increasing finance on resilience through an inclusive and dynamic space that it fosters at and between COPs, uniting and motivating actors from across different sectors, scales, and geographies. It aims to broaden and deepen the engagement of non-state actors in resilience actions as home to the Race to Resilience campaign and in line with the 2030 Agenda.

Building resilience requires urgent but continuous action and investment in view of the already ongoing and increasing impacts of climate change. The Resilience Hub is not simply an event space at COPs, but a ‘connector’ for a diverse community of actors from businesses, investors, cities, civil society, research institutions, community-based organisations, grassroots federations and many other actors engaged in driving efforts on adaptation and resilience.

The Resilience Hub COP space is a key uniting moment, but it is also cumulative of the continuous process of dialogue, advocacy and action that will take place throughout the year, building from the first-ever COP26 Resilience Hub and through to 2030, aligning and engaging with key international resilience initiatives and targets.

The role of Regional Resilience Hubs

The Regional Resilience Hubs play a crucial role in delivering the overarching vision for the Resilience Hub. They ensure the voices and perspectives of communities and constituencies most impacted by climate change are amplified to increasingly drive the global resilience agenda. 

Regional Hubs are not separate from the Resilience Hub, but rather a crucial component in ensuring the Resilience Hub is useful and appropriate to the Global South, and that lesser-heard and under-represented voices are included.

Regional Hubs will end before COP27 to ensure ample time to build momentum around key regional messages and priorities that can then be shared at COP27. 

The COP27 Africa Regional Resilience Hub: call for session proposals

The COP27 Africa Hub welcomes all interested individuals, initiatives, and organisations involved in adaptation and resilience in Africa to submit session proposals for virtual events that share key African priorities, solutions, challenges and opportunities under the five standalone and two cross-cutting Resilience Hub themes:

Stand-alone themes

• Finance and investment
• Food and agriculture
• Resilient infrastructure
• Water and natural ecosystems
• Cities and urbanisation

Cross-cutting themes

• Gender equality and social inclusion
• Engaging and amplifying voices from frontline communities and lesser- heard and under-represented constituencies, including Indigenous communities, young people and women

Sessions must be led by an African organisation and innovative engagement formats and methods are encouraged. These can include facilitated dialogues, learning clinics, master classes, panel discussions, round tables, games, storytelling, lightning talks, talk shows and marketplaces to share resilience solutions and innovations.

Timelines and format of submissions

Please send your event proposal to yoliswa@southsouthnorth.org by 18 August 2022, 18h00 Central African Time.

More information about the format of proposals and criteria for selection can be found here. 

The outcome of the evaluation of proposals will be communicated no later than 24 August.

The COP27 Africa Regional Hub virtual sessions will run from 19-21 September.

More info

If you would like to learn more about the Africa Hub and how to get involved, please email Michelle du Toit (michelle@southsouthnorth.org).

To learn more about the Regional Hubs in general, please email the Regional Hubs coordinator, Ameil Harikishun (aharikishun@globalresiliencepartnership.org).