The Centre for Environment Justice is implementing a project “Strengthening Civil Society Voices for Climate Advocacy in Zambia” with support from the United Nations Democracy Fund. The project aims to enhance Zambia’s climate change resilience by addressing the existing gaps in policy application and coordination through strengthening Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). Further, the initiative will empower civil society organisations in Zambia to play a pivotal role in advocating for climate action and environmental sustainability. The project is implemented in five (5) districts namely; Lusaka, Chirundu, Luangwa, Chongwe and Rufunsa.

This project focuses on strengthening the climate advocacy capacity of CSOs through training, stakeholder consultations, stakeholder dialogue, knowledge sharing, and strengthening of frameworks for advocacy in the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process and Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) implementation. The definition of capacity strengthening to be used in this project centres on facilitating the strengthening of existing skills within the beneficiary CSOs as well as the knowledge and abilities of these climate champions movement in Zambia to better achieve their targeted advocacy outcomes within their organizational programming. This will include improving skills needed to analyze national climate change policy, identifying what change needs to happen and how, and increasing knowledge on National Climate Change Policy, the NAP process, and NDC implementation, including how to generate and use evidence in a policy space. It will further reinforce the capacity of CSOs to take strong climate actions such as actualization of the Zambia Environmental Fund and coordinating its implementation with government, private sector, traditional leadership and ward development committees

NDCs are national climate targets that each country sets for itself in order to contribute to the global effort to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to UNFCC, a coordination mechanism for NDCs implementation is needed to ensure effectiveness and avoid duplication of development partners’ work. Civil society organizations (CSOs)1 can play a critical role in supporting the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Overall, CSOs can play a critical role in supporting the implementation of NDCs, by advocating for ambitious targets, providing technical assistance and capacity building support, monitoring progress and holding stakeholders accountable, and building partnerships and collaborating with other actors. However, CSOs capacity and resilience to implement adaptation programmes and coordinate with government requires strengthening.