Our Story & Movement Overview
The Africa-Wide Climate Justice Movement (AW-CJM) is a feminist movement promoting gender, climate, and environmental justice in Africa.
The movement members are African eco-feminists, activists, advocates, and women-led grassroots organizations focused on amplifying a collective voice
and solutions to climate challenges.
Conceived in 2022, the movement grew through landmark convenings in Kinshasa (April 2023), Arusha (July 2023), and Accra (October-November 2023).
Supported by the Global Fund for Women, ACJM embraces a movement-led approach to amplify access to resources, capacity building, and power-shifting
for climate justice transformation.
Vision
To be a vibrant feminist collective championing gender, climate, and environmental justice in Africa.
Core Values & Principles
- Diversity, solidarity & inclusion: We embrace and support each other without discrimination.
- Transparency: Collective, non-hierarchical decision-making based on clear criteria.
- Courage & boldness: Freedom of expression, bold decisions, and owning our power.
- Care & wellbeing: Prioritizing rest and care as vital to community and planet health.
- Honouring African identity: Respect for indigenous knowledge, practices, and culture.
Our Objectives
- Create a forum for regional movement actors, including marginalized groups, to discuss climate justice challenges and impacts on women.
- Agree on regional priorities and develop inclusive approaches to addressing climate justice issues.
- Increase funding access for feminist and women-led groups through participatory grantmaking and solidarity funds.
- Strengthen capacity of members to design and implement climate justice interventions and advocacy.
- Facilitate opportunities for partnership building and learning events.
- Encourage documentation of best practices and sharing knowledge from global climate justice movements.
Commitment to Transformative Feminist Leadership
- Facilitating participatory and consultative discussions with movement actors on needs, priorities, and success indicators.
- Maintaining transparent information flow and identifying growth and sustainability opportunities.
- Creating inclusive spaces ensuring vulnerable groups are heard.
- Shifting power dynamics within the movement.
- Building strong, trusting relationships through learning from each other.
Thematic Focus & Priorities
Grantmaking
Leading grant making based on regional funding priorities, managing applications and providing orientation guided by the Global Fund for Women.
Capacity Strengthening
Supporting self-assessment and capacity building interventions for movement members to scale climate justice efforts.
Advocacy & Communications
Creating opportunities for joint advocacy, policy influence, and amplifying campaigns, including social media and spokesperson roles.
Knowledge Generation & Learning
Documenting the movement’s journey, mapping actors, sharing learnings, and facilitating convenings for collective learning.
Movement Committee
The Africa Climate Justice Movement Committee ensures inclusive representation across Africa’s regions and diverse demographic groups including youth, minority groups, and persons with disabilities. It governs the movement through participatory identification of actors and the collective rollout of priorities.
- Representatives from East Africa, Southern Africa, Anglophone and Francophone West Africa, North Africa, Island States, Youth, Women and Girls with Special Needs, and marginalized groups.
- Adhering to geographic and demographic inclusivity, power balance in decisions, and language justice.
Grantmaking Achievements
Since inception, the movement has awarded 63 grants supporting women-led feminist groups across Africa, through multiple cycles focused on inclusion of new members and marginalized communities. Progress ranges from fully implemented projects to ongoing grant disbursements, showcasing the collective effort to sustain climate and gender justice work.
The Movement Committee collaborates closely with subcommittees to document impact stories for visibility and to strengthen resource mobilization and partnerships.
Meet Thandiwe Chidavarume
Thandiwe Chidavarume is a gender and climate justice activist with a Master's of Science in Strategic Management and an Honours degree in Politics and Administration.
She currently serves as the National Coordinator for Women and Land in Zimbabwe, leading the Rural Women's Chapter with a membership over 45,000 and acting as a reference group leader for the Southern Africa Rural Women’s Assembly (SRWA), representing 200,000+ women in the SADC region.
Thandiwe is Chairperson of the Africa Wide Climate Justice Movement (ACJM), grant-making community member with Mama Cash, and has conducted key research such as the Southern Africa Traditional Seed Audit across seven SADC countries.
A passionate farmer and advocate, she firmly believes that rural women’s access to, control, and ownership of land and resources is vital to eradicating hunger and poverty, empowering communities, and enabling women to fight for their rights.
Her vision is a just distribution of land and natural resources, full recognition of women’s land rights, and climate justice.