Move the world with local voices Voices for Just Climate Action

Connect, support, and amplify the impact of existing inspiring climate initiatives of local communities.

WWF recognizes that for effective climate action, it's important to involve local communities, especially indigenous people, women, and youth. These communities lived intimately connected to nature for generations and have specific landscape knowledge and often possess necessary skills to counter the effects of climate change.

What is the situation?

In our close work with local communities, we see growing recognition but it’s precisely these local communities that are not at the centre of decisions about their environment and livelihoods. They have no influence on policy or financial resources, simply because they are not part of the conversation.

What is the Voices for Just Climate Action programme about?

What is Voices for just Climate Action?

Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) is a network of now almost two hundred organizations and thousands of people across Bolivia, Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Paraguay, the Netherlands, Tunisia, and Zambia. As part of the network, WWF can ensure that local and global knowledge to fight climate change is connected and facilitate that local people, communities, and organizations have their own seat at the tables where climate decisions are made.

The VCA network started in 2020 as an alliance with four Southern and two Global civil society organizations (Slum Dwellers International, South South North, Fundación Avina, Akina Mama wa Africa, Hivos and WWF-NL) to bring local and global actors with diverse expertise on climate justice and equity and local knowledge on climate adaption closer together.  

Barbara Nakangu
Barbara Nakangu
Programme Manager WWF-NL Voices for just Climate Action
“With VCA, WWF can connect, support, and amplify the impact of existing inspiring climate initiatives of communities that inhabit the richest ecosystems of the world.”
Read Barbara's blog

A local network across 7 countries

Learn more about the local partners, the local challenges and local solutions in the 7 countries of our VCA network. Among them a diversity of rural and urban civil society organizations, alternative media, and grassroots organizations: some youth-led, other Indigenous-led or woman-led.

Jaime Rojo / WWF-US
Brazil
Brazil
VCA Brazil has prioritized and promoted women's roles in the Climate Justice agenda. Of the 72 organizations that make up the network in Brazil, seven are formed exclusively by women.
Fernando Franceschelli / WWF-Brazil
Bolivia-Paraguay
Bolivia-Paraguay
Local actions of the VCA-network of 33 local partners are being implemented in more than 130 indigenous communities, from 10 different Indigenous peoples.
Indonesia
Indonesia
Greg Armfield / WWF-UK
Kenya
Kenya
Tunisia
Tunisia
Martin Harvey / WWF
Zambia
Zambia
16 Local partners provide a broader ecosystem of stakeholders that connect through the network. For example: two member organizations of the Governance cluster.

How can we engage with local communities?

With the VCA-network we want to ensure that local communities are in the centre of climate action. How can we facilitate?

  • 1

    Collaboration and partnership-building

    By connecting CSOs across different levels, we can bring actors with diverse expertise and local knowledge closer together.

  • 2

    Joint lobbying and advocacy

    As a network, we can lobby and advocate together to make policy and financial flows responsive to locally shaped climate solutions.

  • 3

    Locally led climate solutions

    With local knowledge from rich ecosystems around the world we can consider the unique perspectives and needs of different communities and scale up initiatives.

Reports and updates

Marizilda Cruppe / WWF-UK

Report: learnings local leadership of climate solutions

Curious about the learnings and key takeaways for locally led climate solutions? Read the latest report and help to spread the voices of local people and communities in the Global South in an even bigger network.
Meer info
Jaime Rojo / WWF-US

The Silent Drought – Life without water in the forests of Bolivia

All life needs water. It is essential for our ecosystems to stay in balance. However, the quest for freshwater is a daily struggle within the Chiquitano Dry Forest of Bolivia. In these regions water scarcity is leading to thirst to all its inhabitants, including the local communities, Indigenous Peoples, cattle, animals, forests, and fauna. The Bolivian journalist Roberto Navia provides us with an intriguing documentary of the daily suffering of all these inhabitants living within these dry forests.
Meer info
WWF / Simon Rawles

A vlog: the need for equitable and accessible climate finance

A vlog by WWF-employee Barbara Nakangu
Meer info
Guyra Paraguay

The right to a future

Read the stories from the report 'The right to a future' and discover how the rights of the people in Paraguay are violated.
Meer info
Greg Armfield / WWF-UK

One year of Voices for Just Climate Action

The world is increasingly becoming aware of the devastating impacts that the climate crisis has not only on nature, but also on people. In February of this year, the IPCC stressed that the consequences of the crisis hit the world’s most vulnerable places and people disproportionally. It also made clear that it’s possible to bend the curve. In collaboration with those who face the brunt of climate change, and with nature as our ally. The concept of Climate Justice has never been more relevant.
Meer info
WWF

Climate Justice through the eyes of an African woman

The climate crisis that we are facing has no frontiers. It impacts all of us, but it really hits specific groups a lot harder: Women, youth, the poor, indigenous people and local communities living in the world’s most affected countries by climate change. How and why? And what is the relation between climate change and women?
Meer info
James Suter / Black Bean Productions / WWF-US

Help us move the world!

Thanks to VCA we can connect directly at grassroots level and work with new partners, such as indigenous associations, alternative media and local civil society organizations. It challenges us to practice deep listening and learn from the past and others. Please join our mission to create awareness and spur public debate.

For more information on how to collaborate, visit the website: www.voicesforjustclimateaction.org or contact us via info@voicesforclimateaction.org.

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