“Following the youth climate space for now almost 15 years, I have seen a growth in presence and representation that is really inspiring. We have accomplished a lot, and we need everyone else to be with us in this fight and to open even more doors,” said Brazilian political scientist Eduarda Zoghbi when participating in the plenary session of the Climate Investment Funds’ (CIF) 15th anniversary event in Brasilia last June. “It’s so important to have mentorship and sponsorship of young people working around organizations,” she explained. “Youth are tomorrow's leaders, today. Therefore, we need to ensure we have meaningful participation in discussion on climate solutions,” said Thandolwethu Lukuko, Coordinator of the South Africa Climate Action Network, while reflecting on that same week of events.
As we celebrate International Youth Day under the theme Green Skills for Youth: Towards a Sustainable Youth, the Climate Investment Funds renew our commitment to work with Eduarda, Thandolwethu and hundreds of youth leaders like them to engage, educate and harness youth climate finance leadership.
Since CIF's inception in 2008, youth have fearlessly embraced their role in climate change efforts, influencing global decision-making, advocating for better representation, and driving innovative solutions at the local level. They can play a crucial role in mobilizing climate finance and urging governments to prioritize sustainable investments. The CIF, as one of the largest multilateral financing mechanisms fueling climate action, is uniquely placed to educate youth on climate finance and facilitate their inclusion in the multilateral system. CIF’s youth engagement has been informed by consultations with over 120 global youth leaders including representatives from the UN Global Center on Adaptation, Adaptation Fund, and World Bank's Global Youth Climate Network (GYCN), regional, national and local level youth-led organizations, and more. It covers capacity building; youth entrepreneurship and innovation; engagement in governance, networking, and collaboration; and communication, knowledge, and outreach.
The most recent example of CIF’s youth engagement is the groundbreaking CIF Youth Fellowship program. This Fellowship, which offers opportunities with CIF’s six multilateral development bank (MDB) partners in developing countries, was launched in collaboration with the United Nations Office of the Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth and the Arab Youth Center on Climate Change at the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week in January 2023. The Fellowship aims to develop the green skills of a select cohort of young leaders in climate action who will work with CIF co-financed programs in their own country. They will benefit from one year of capacity building and hands-on experience in climate-related areas such as Nature-based Solutions, clean energy and energy access, adaptation, resilience, gender and social inclusion, and environmental safeguards. More than 3,000 youth applied to become CIF Fellows, and the seven successful candidates will start in the fall in Egypt, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Thailand and Tunisia.
To ensure more capacity building at the individual level, CIF has been hosting youth interns from different regions of the world to join our core team since 2020. Four young people from the Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Middle East and North Africa regions have already benefited from this opportunity to join CIF for almost a year. “My internship has been an incredible learning experience,” said Thanaa Hesham, a former CIF youth intern from Egypt. “Working with the CIF has shown me the critical role of climate finance in addressing the climate crisis. I developed a solid understanding of climate finance mechanisms, architecture, and key actors in the field such as youth,” she explained. For collective learning, CIF has delivered trainings on international climate finance with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, GFLAC, and UNFCCC's Youth Constituency. More training will be delivered in the fall of 2023.
When youth are ready to jump into climate action, they find CIF at their side. “You can be a youth supporter not just by providing funding but also by creating an avenue for seed funding,” said Eduarda Zoghbi in Brasilia. CIF has co-funded initiatives such as the World Bank’s GYCN Climate Smart Entrepreneurship competition and the Global Center on Adaptation YouthADAPT competition in Africa. These initiatives foster local solutions for adaptation and resilience. CIF also contributed to the Global Youth Platform for Resilience and Climate Action, strengthening youth voices in the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. In 2023, we partnered with the G20 India Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group which featured youth voices on Increasing Application of Ecosystem-based Approaches to Disaster Risk Reduction. CIF also organized post-COP27 virtual youth dialogues to facilitate knowledge sharing and network building.
Most importantly, CIF’s long term youth engagement can be observed in program funding. With the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience, CIF financing focused on educating and building the capacity of youth on climate adaptation. This involved raising awareness through young artists and rural youth in Jamaica, Zambia, Papua New Guinea, St. Lucia, and Cambodia in CIF interventions. The Clean Technology Fund and Forest Investment Program supported green jobs opportunities for youth in forest-based enterprises and renewable energy. The Dedicated Grant Mechanism, giving direct access to climate funding to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, also features youth beneficiaries, with university scholarships for eligible students.
Looking forward, collective capacity building components of new CIF programs such as Nature, People and Climate and Accelerating Coal Transition will be key to empower youth for the green transition. “If we are building capacity for people who have been in the sector many years and not focusing on youth, we are going to spend a lot of unnecessary resources. Look at Africa: 70% of the entire population is under 30, so if you are building capacity you have to get to the young people who will be very soon leading their governments, leading private sector companies,” explained Eduarda Zoghbi. “if I'm putting candidly, the non-youth participants sit with the knowledge, but the youth participants sit with a different kind of knowledge which could benefit [others]. And the capacity building aspect allows for those two to be married,” concluded Thando Thandolwethu Lukuko at the end of an event focused on coal transitions.