Young climate advocates roll out community projects to tackle Lake Chad threats.

The initiative, which forms part of a regional programme covering Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger, brought together young climate advocates, experts and project coordinators. Focus was to strengthen adaptation strategies and promote grassroots responses to climate change in the Lake Chad Basin. 

Speaking during the workshop, Development Expert, Chefor Daisy, said the fellowship seeks to move communities beyond emergency responses towards long-term adaptation measures as climate pressures intensify across the region.

She said the Lake Chad Basin continues to face serious environmental threats, warning that the lake has already lost more than 90 per cent of its water surface.

“The Lake Chad today may be shrinking but our minds are not shrinking. The shift that we want to form is that we shift completely from mitigation to adaptation,” Chefor said.

“We will always face the adverse effects of climate change. What do we do? Do we continue every year with inundations and floods sharing bags of rice and cartons of soap, or do we look for how we can live with climate change?” she added.

According to the Development Expert, the fellowship was designed to place young people at the centre of climate action while helping them understand the environmental challenges facing the Lake Chad region and their communities.

She explained that fellows were guided through project validation processes before receiving funding to implement their initiatives over a six-month period. 

According to her, six fellows were selected in Cameroon out of a regional total of 20 participants from the four Lake Chad countries.

Community projects take centre stage

Chefor said one of the expectations of the programme is for fellows to produce measurable community impact through practical environmental solutions. 

She cited a project in Soa, near Yaounde, where women would receive grafted fruit tree seedlings capable of producing harvests within two years instead of the usual five years.

The approach, she explained, would reduce the need for women to travel long distances to farms while improving household livelihoods through climate-smart agriculture.

“Each fellow should be able to use the funds that were put at their disposal to implement their project and for us to see that there is impact. If these projects are able to work at community level, they will be scaled,” Chefor said.

She also disclosed that mentors in each country would conduct monitoring and evaluation exercises throughout the six-month implementation period, including baseline, midterm and final assessments.

One of the fellows, Awat Bertrand Abanyi, described the fellowship as a transformative experience that equipped participants with practical knowledge on climate justice, adaptation and community engagement. 

His project focuses on establishing community tree nurseries using grafted high-yield fruit varieties in Tubah, North West Region.

“The Lake Chad Climate Justice Youth Fellowship is a phenomenal initiative. I would summarise it by saying that it is highly insightful, impactful and above all transformative,” Abanyi said.

Explaining the grafting technique, Abanyi said the method allows fruit trees to produce within one and a half to two years, compared to five to seven years for conventional planting.

“Even a student renting a room can plant a grafted tree in a bucket and it would bear fruit there. That is why the idea of one person, one fruit tree is possible,” Abanyi said.

Another fellow, Mitin Sandrine Yaah, said her Eco Youth Policy Lab project in Bamenda seeks to bridge the gap between young environmental actors and local councils. 

She said many young people were already engaged in climate and environmental activities, but their contributions were often absent from local governance structures.

“We are hoping that some of the solutions proposed by these young people will be taken into consideration and that local authorities will recognise youth engagement in the environmental space,” Sandrine Yaah said.

She further explained that participants in her project would be trained in policy brief writing and advocacy techniques before engaging municipal authorities on local environmental issues such as flooding, waste management and rising temperatures.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3786 of Monday May 11, 2026