UNLEASH Climate Action Partnership Hack
UNLEASH partnered with Last Mile Climate to bring together 60 sustainability advocates for a one-day Hack to develop solutions related to solar-electric cooking, reforestation, and recycling in displacement settings in sub-Saharan Africa.
The program happened simultaneously in three different locations: Nairobi, Kenya; Kampala, Uganda; and Copenhagen, Denmark.
Throughout the day, a set of diverse teams who have either lived or professional experience relating to the three themes worked across the three locations to promote multi-stakeholder climate action partnerships from different angles:
- Solar-electric cooking solutions
- Engaging local communities in reforestation projects
- Recycling and bridging informal and formal waste management ecosystem
While Talents spent the majority of their time working with their team on-site, the three different locations connected for online sessions to collaborate and share progress. The program ended with teams pitching their solutions to peers and partners joining in either physically or online.
A variety of solutions came out of the 11 teams working together throughout the day. In Copenhagen, for example, one team proposed creating Community Collection Centers (CCC) that facilitate various plastic waste collection and sorting centers per camp, where residents are encouraged to collect the waste and exchange it for goods.
In Nairobi, Team Kahawa Jua-Kali explored how to raise awareness of new solar-cooking technologies by bringing local communities together to drink kahawa (coffee) cooked with solar power, thereby promoting increased adoption of solar-electric cooking in communities.
In Kampala, Team Bees and Trees proposed to establish tree nursery beds with community members and training them on tree growing and apiary management to encourage reforestation by focusing on planting Indigenous and fruit trees and involving refugee settlements.
Across the 3 locations, participants learned about the importance of framing and contextualizing problems with the lens of the needs of those impacted by challenges to find solutions that solve root causes. This highlighted the value and need for partnerships to address the multi-faceted needs of climate action.
Last Mile Climate is a non-profit organization working to leverage climate action partnerships to tackle climate-related challenges at the last mile. In collaboration with the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Center, the Global Platform for Action, and the IKEA Foundation, Last Mile Climate partnered with UNLEASH to organize an UNLEASH Hack to frame problems and develop solutions relevant to refugee and displacement settings in sub-Saharan Africa.
This year at UNLEASH, we look forward to more UNLEASH Hacks all around the world that will tackle root-cause problems in local communities. Would you like to be part of an UNLEASH Hack? Stay tuned for exciting news coming soon!