Climate and Environmental Governance Programme (CEGP)

Climate, energy, and environmental democracy in our lifetime.

The Climate and Environmental Governance Programme (CEGP) seeks to democratise climate action by embedding climate and environmental decisions in transparent, accountable, and inclusive governance systems at local, national, and international levels. With climate and environmental issues increasingly prioritised in policy and investment decision-making, the CEGP aims to leverage this increased focus as an opportunity to strengthen governance and promote democratic policies, processes and institutions. In this, we work to re-politicise climate and natural resource management debates, recognising that climate change is not just an environmental issue, but a deeply political process.

The CEGP programme works within four principles that help us define and work towards climate, energy, and environmental democracy.

Principles of Climate and Energy Democracy.

The CEGP programme works within four principles that help us define and work towards climate, energy, and environmental democracy. These principles inform our project design, strategic partnership formation, and advocacy agendas, and include:

1. Integrating adaptation into the Just Energy Transition (JET)

Every mitigation investment — whether public or private —must support or unlock resources for local adaptation and resilience.

The energy transition cannot succeed without simultaneously building resilience to climate shocks, especially for vulnerable and underserved communities. While investments in renewable energy, green hydrogen, and electric vehicles are critical to achieving mitigation goals, they often overlook local adaptation needs such as food security, water access, and disaster preparedness. This principle demands a twin-track approach: every dollar, pula, rand, Kwacha, or euro spent on mitigation must either directly fund or mobilise additional resources for community-level adaptation.

2. Strengthen local governance structures

Local governance is at the frontline of climate impacts and natural resource management, and it should, therefore, be supported as leaders in mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Local governments are increasingly tasked with setting and delivering on climate change mandates[1]. However, governance decentralisation in many African countries has not been coupled with meaningful capacity development and resourcing. For climate policy to be effective, it must be anchored in the statutory planning systems that govern land use, service delivery, budgeting, and infrastructure decisions, especially at the local level. This creates more sustainable climate and environmental interventions and provides an opportunity to strengthen broader local governance infrastructure through climate investment.

As responsibilities for service delivery, land use management, and infrastructure planning shift closer to the people, municipalities emerge as frontline institutions in climate mitigation and adaptation. Their growing mandate is reinforced by their participation in global and regional environmental network governance platforms—such as C40 Cities, ICLEI, and the Covenant of Mayors for Sub-Saharan Africa—which provide technical support, policy guidance, and a forum for peer learning.

3. Intersectionality as Efficiency

Tackling gender, youth, class, and spatial inequities with climate change yields faster systemic change and higher social and economic returns on development investments.

Climate change is not a neutral force—it magnifies existing inequalities. Women, youth, informal workers, rural communities, and people living with disabilities often face the harshest impacts yet have the least voice in decision-making. At the same time, they possess critical knowledge, networks, and capabilities that are essential for building resilient systems. Intersectionality is not just a value; it is a multiplier of programme impact. This principle rejects siloed approaches and instead adopts intersectional environmentalism as a core methodology. By recognising and addressing how multiple forms of marginalisation interact, we build more inclusive governance processes and unlock new forms of climate intelligence, innovation, and participation.

4. Strength in Diversity

Collective impact platforms—linking CSOs, all tiers of government and companies—are essential for scale and legitimacy.

No single actor—government, civil society, or business—can solve the climate crisis alone. Fragmented action, even when well-intentioned, leads to duplicated efforts, misaligned priorities, and missed opportunities. Collective impact models, which bring diverse stakeholders together under shared goals and coordinated strategies, are essential to achieving transformational outcomes at scale. This principle prioritises structured collaboration and mutual accountability across sectors. CEDP fosters multi-stakeholder platforms—such as municipal-CSO-private sector steering committees, open data forums, and climate dialogue roundtables—to build trust, align efforts, and pool resources. It also draws from initiatives like the UN Global Compact, F20, and Industry Transition Coalition, linking local governance efforts to national and international green industrialisation and transition frameworks.