Climate resilience has become one of the defining challenges of our time. Yet across Africa, the communities most affected by climate shocks are often the furthest removed from the conversations and decisions that shape climate responses.
The newly established Africa Resilience Collaborative (ARC) was created with this challenge in mind. Bringing together the African Climate Foundation, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, Tax Justice Network Africa, LIFE-AR and TrustAfrica, the Collaborative seeks to strengthen African-led approaches to resilience and locally led adaptation. At its core is a simple but important idea: resilience solutions are most effective when they are informed by the realities, experiences and priorities of African communities themselves. To launch this collective effort, ARC convened the first two sessions of the Africa Resilience Dialogues, a webinar series designed to connect global climate discussions with practical realities on the ground.
The inaugural session, “COP30 and Africa: From Outcomes to Action,” opened with remarks from Dr. Ebrima Sall, Executive Director of TrustAfrica and Africa Resilience Collaborative Interim Lead. In his reflections, Dr. Sall emphasised the importance of moving beyond discussions of vulnerability and towards building systems, institutions and partnerships capable of supporting long-term resilience across the continent.
The dialogue explored what recent global climate commitments mean for Africa, focusing on adaptation finance, the Global Goal on Adaptation and the implications of a just transition for African countries and communities. Participants reflected on a question that continues to shape climate debates across the continent: how do global commitments translate into tangible improvements in people’s lives?
The second webinar moved that conversation a step closer to the ground. Titled “Building Resilience: Countries in Action,” the session brought together practitioners and policymakers to share experiences from national and local adaptation efforts. The discussion highlighted how resilience is already being built in communities through local innovation, partnerships and practical solutions, often with limited resources but remarkable determination.
A recurring theme across both webinars was the importance of connecting policy with practice. While global frameworks and financing commitments remain critical, lasting resilience ultimately depends on the people, institutions and communities responsible for implementing them.
The strong participation in the first two dialogues points to a growing appetite for spaces where African voices can exchange ideas, challenge assumptions and learn from one another. In many ways, that is precisely what the Africa Resilience Collaborative hopes to become: a platform for collective learning, collaboration and action.
