Refugee youth resolve to scale up community-led resilience projects

BY STEVE EPHRAEM

In May 2026, the Refugee Coalition for Climate Action (RCCA), a youth-led initiative, convened a three-day climate resilience dialogue in Tongogara Refugee Settlement, Chipinge, Zimbabwe. The forum brought together twenty young participants representing refugee communities from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Zimbabwe.

Over the course of the discussions, these young people examined a pressing and under-addressed reality of how climate change is systematically undermining their education, health, housing, food security, and overall wellbeing.

Participants reported that their existence is effectively invisible within existing climate governance frameworks as national environmental policies and laws as well as regional and international treaties consistently omit refugees and asylum seekers from their definitions. This results with the young refugees in Tongogara being left without formal recognition or protection in climate adaptation planning, despite being among the most vulnerable to droughts, floods, and extreme heat.

In response to this institutional silence, the youth resolved to advocate for their inclusion in national and international climate policies, treaties, and financing structures and pledged to take grassroots action by scaling up community-led resilience projects that include tree planting, organic gardening, and environmental restoration.