Bukavu, Bunia, North Kivu, Maniema and Haut-Uele – In a continental context marked by the fragility of environmental legal frameworks and the growing tensions surrounding natural resources, a training and information workshop brought together environmental and land rights defenders around a central issue: the ERA process (Environmental Rights Africa), presented as a structuring initiative for the promotion of environmental rights in Africa.
Behind the technical title of the workshop—focused on access to information through ICTs, the dissemination of legal instruments, and the protection mechanisms for defenders—an underlying idea emerged: Africa still lacks a sufficiently robust regional framework to effectively guarantee environmental rights.
The ERA process is part of a broader regional reflection, based on a recurring assessment presented during the workshop: the inadequacy of African legal frameworks in the field of environmental rights. According to the presentations shared, the initiative aims to inform defenders about existing or emerging regional mechanisms, mobilize stakeholders to appropriate these tools, and build advocacy toward a future African agreement on environmental rights.
The approach is based on a critical reading of the current situation, characterized by fragmented national frameworks, limited institutional capacity, and weak implementation of existing laws. In this perspective, ERA is presented as an attempt at continental structuring combining dialogue, knowledge production, and normative development.
Although not the geographical focus of the debate, the Escazú Agreement was used as a major reference point. Presented as the first international treaty explicitly integrating the protection of environmental defenders, it was cited as a possible model for Africa. Its principles—access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to environmental justice—were recalled as the pillars of an “environmental democracy” still largely incomplete on the continent. However, several speakers stressed the need to avoid mechanical replication, emphasizing that the ERA process seeks adaptation to African realities.
Beyond principles, the workshop highlighted a structural gap between norms and their implementation. Institutions remain fragile, political incentives insufficient, public awareness still limited, and law enforcement often weak. In this context, environmental defenders appear as particularly exposed actors, especially in areas affected by land conflicts and natural resource exploitation.
The ERA process is thus presented as a hybrid framework, both a dialogue platform and an attempt at normative construction. It is based on a consortium of actors from civil society, public institutions, international partners, and organizations engaged in environmental governance. The stated ambition is to produce a common roadmap and influence the establishment of a future binding African legal framework on environmental rights.
Within this dynamic, ERA also intends to deploy communication and engagement strategies based on the mobilization of influential champions, parliamentarians, as well as defenders from regional institutions, governments, civil society, and local communities. The goal is to build a coalition capable of politically and socially advancing the environmental rights agenda at continental level.
In addition, the initiative plans to expand and strengthen the civil society network. Beyond the core team and regional focal points, ERA aims to consolidate a broader network of actors committed to the need for a binding agreement, presented as essential for implementing just transition solutions in Africa.
On the knowledge production side, another key component was highlighted: financial support for case studies and assessments in at least six additional African countries. These studies, based on a methodology already used by partners of TAI Africa, are intended to provide an updated overview of progress in environmental rights. Target countries would include regions of North Africa, with extensions to West, East, and Southern Africa, in order to strengthen comparative analysis and a regional, evidence-based dynamic.
In the same vein, several defenders and climate activists welcomed the legal aid program implemented by ACEDH through its Global Climate Legal Defense (CliDef) initiative, which they see as a concrete response to the growing legal vulnerabilities faced by frontline actors.
In conclusion, participants called for the engagement of all stakeholders—states, civil society, and technical partners—to join the ERA movement, participate in regional consultations, and support the development of a binding African legal framework on environmental rights. It now remains to be seen whether this emerging architecture will move beyond intentions to become a real binding lever for environmental governance on the African continent. As of today, approximately 18 legal cases are being supported in favor of climate defenders and activists in the DRC thanks to funding from the Global Climate Legal Defense (CliDef).
By Kilalopress