GEO-6 for Youth: Africa


Green Towns Initiative


Earning decent livelihoods from environmental consultancy


In recent years, the demand for environmental specialists has increased significantly. For instance, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 calls for sustainable production and consumption patterns; it seeks to put in place sustainable harvesting and transportation services for food products to ensure that the food wastage is mitigated, that energy use is more efficient, and that natural resources are conserved. The goal has made companies and organizations seek the services of environmental consultants. Environmental consultancy is a profession that entails among other things, ensuring that the client adheres to environmental regulations.


Environmental consultancy is a sustainable and viable means of livelihood that young environmental experts can embrace. It offers young environmental professionals an opportunity to develop their experience in an environment with adequate tools, knowledge, and resources. Environmental consultancy also exposes the young environmentalists to continuous learning as they adapt to the dynamics in the industry.


Young environmental consultants are also given the opportunity to capacity build during their initial recruitment. That is, they are taken through training to ensure that they understand the activities of the organization and able to learn and develop. The young dedicated and ethical consultants often experience significant growth in the early stages of their career. Again, in some instances, competence is based on the capability, interest, and competence and not the type of degree. Therefore, young environmentalists without a degree in such courses but competent enough have the opportunity to make the world a better place. Lastly, young people like networking and fun which are the same activities that can be found in environmental consultancy fields of operation. Consultancy careers are often characterized with events thus opportunity for the young professionals to socialize and put on their fancy attire.


The Somali Youth Agro-Marine Development Association (SOMYAMDA) has teamed up with the Somali Diaspora Network (SDN) to empower young women as champions of the environment, building the resilience of their communities by cultivating drought-resistant crops. The reason for this is simple. Even before the outbreak of the fully-fledged civil war in 1991, illegal logging of the Acacia Bussei was rampant (Saleem and Hussein 2015). The deforestation and lack of re-afforestation is so pervasive that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed it on its red list (Contu 2012). The illegal logging of this very important desert plant was fuelled by charcoal production whose proceeds were used to fund the operations of the illegal militia group, Al-Shabaab (Nellemann et al. eds. 2014).


In order to combat deforestation and landscape degradation, SOMYADA has engaged young women in the process of landscape restoration through planting trees in some of the areas that are most affected by illegal logging. In addition, the young women are able to farm dryland areas through the use of irrigation methods and drought-resistant crop varieties. This will give them a foothold in sustainable agribusiness as well as addressing food security. This initiative which is in its formative stages hopes to upscale and expand in the coming years.


Youth Action 5: Creating livelihoods from bamboo, Kenya


Africa is rapidly urbanizing (by 2050, more than 1,300 million Africans will call a city home) in a period of unprecedented climate stress; the region is warming up 1.5 times faster than the global average (Muggah and Hill 2018).


Nyangores River in Kenya's Great Rift Valley


The threefold challenges of air pollution, access to sanitation services, and availability of clean drinking water will challenge cities. There is, therefore,


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However, one youth group is changing the face of this nation. The group envisions that Somalia will become a hub of revival, renewal, and restoration, and that the country will become equitable, productive, and climate-resilient. The beauty about it is that they will create this change, one young woman at a time.


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