New Policy Brief: Advancing a Pan-African Agenda for Climate Reparations

Africa is owed repair. Our new policy brief sets out six recommendations for advancing climate reparations through African and international policy processes, connecting legal accountability, reparative finance, ecological repair and community self-determination. The brief draws on the African Symposium on Climate Reparations (external link), convened by the African Climate Reparations Collective in Mombasa, Kenya on 30 September and 1 October 2026.

The gathering brought together over 110 representatives from Indigenous and affected communities, social movements, civil society, research and policy to build a shared Pan-African agenda grounded in the experiences of those living with climate harm. 

The brief builds on the Open Letter, "An African Call for Climate Reparations: Accountability, Equity, and Repair for People and Planet (external link)," which emerged from the same gathering. It builds on the conversations in Mombasa and the letter's shared demands into recommendations for African governments, international institutions, Afro-descendant leaders and civil society advocates toward COP32. 
 

Across Africa, climate harm is inseparable from histories of colonial extraction and the economic and political structures that continue to determine who benefits, who bears the costs and whose claims are heard. Communities face losses of land, livelihoods, health, culture and ecosystems, while African countries are expected to indebt their populations in order to finance recovery. 

Recent climate advisory opinions, including from the International Court of Justice (external link), and the African Union's (AU) Decade on Reparations (2026-2036) create opportunities to press for accountability. The challenge is to turn legal recognition and political commitments into remedies that people can obtain, resources they can access and decisions they have the power to shape. 

The brief brings the demands emerging from Mombasa into these debates. It is intended for governments, negotiators, civil society and movements advocating across climate, biodiversity, human rights, reparative justice, debt and tax justice. 

The brief calls for: 

1. A common Pan-African climate reparations agenda, anchored in the AU Decade on Reparations and strengthened through African and Afro-descendant cooperation. 
2. Legal accountability and effective remedies, using climate advisory opinions, domestic legal reform and international human rights processes to hold responsible actors accountable and secure implementation of decisions. 
3. Reparative loss and damage finance, with adequate, predictable grants, contributions reflecting responsibility and direct community access with decision-making power over their use. 
4. Land rights and community stewardship at the centre of ecological repair, connecting ecosystem restoration with land restitution, secure tenure and support for Indigenous and local knowledge. 
5. Debt justice and tax sovereignty, so African countries can retain resources and respond to harm without deepening dependency. 
6. An end to dispossession and extractive injustice in the green transition, with community rights, consent and corporate accountability guiding critical minerals governance and other transition projects. 

Across these six recommendations, gender justice is central. As women and girls often remain invisible and are more severely affected, they must gain rights, resources and decision-making power. Community knowledge must inform how harm is understood and how repair is defined, delivered and assessed for women and girls. 

The brief identifies opportunities across the UNFCCC, the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights climate advisory process (external link), the AU Decade on Reparations, implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, UN tax negotiations and critical minerals governance. Connecting advocacy across these forums can strengthen a common demand for responsibility, self-determination and repair. The African Climate Reparations Collective (external link) offers a space to develop shared positions and bring community struggles into policy debates, alongside existing movements, organisations and networks. 
 
From COP31 in Antalya to COP32 in Addis Ababa, the brief offers a basis for building a common African narrative on climate reparations, deepening cooperation with Afro-descendant movements and connecting advocacy across climate, biodiversity, human rights and economic justice processes. As we work towards COP32 in Addis Ababa, this brief is part of our joint effort to build collective power around an African-led climate reparations agenda. 

The brief was authored by Dr. Patrick Toussaint (African Futures Lab), Mary Morrison (Biophilic Conversations), Samira Ben Ali (World's Youth for Climate Justice), Joie Chowdhury and Lien Vandamme (Center for International Environmental Law), and Samanta Kurash (University of Nairobi), with financial support from the Heinrich-Böll Foundation Washington, DC.